A daughter wheeled her 86-year-old deaf and partially-blind mother to No 10 Downing Street in a bid to stop her care home from closing.

Norma Dudley and her mother Clara took with them a 4,500-name petition in a bid to win Tony Blair's support for a reprieve for the Moreton Centre in St Leonards.

The home's three remaining long-stay residents face eviction following East Sussex County Council's decision to develop it just before Christmas.

Families fear the upheaval of moving the pensioners could kill them and some have threatened to take their own lives if they have to move.

Almost every legal effort has been made to save the home.

In a last-ditch move, pensioners and their relatives marched on Downing Street to try to gain Mr Blair's backing and were joined by Hastings and Rye Labour MP Michael Foster, who spent more than an hour listening to the families' concerns.

Mrs Dudley, from Walthamstow, East London, said: "This was really a last option for us.

"We asked Tony Blair or one of his ministers to come and visit Moreton to at least see what impact moving the residents would have.

"There is evidence that elderly people stop eating when they move homes. That was certainly the case when my mother first moved to Moreton seven years ago.

"My fear is that, with the added trauma, it could happen again."

The families had won permission for a judicial review of the Tory-held council's decision to the centre. Their lawyers claimed in court that there was evidence to link moving pensioners from homes to premature death.

But High Court judge Mr Justice Maurice Kay dismissed the families' case, saying the council had acted fairly and properly.

His ruling meant the authority could go ahead with its plans to turn the home into a 30-place rehabilitation centre to ease hospital bed-blocking, using £1 million in Government cash. Appeals by the families to health minister Jacqui Smith fell on deaf ears and with leave to appeal against Mr Justice Kay's ruling denied, the only option left open for the families is the European Courts of Human Rights.

However, bringing the case to Strasbourg would take at least two years, by which time the home would be closed.

Mrs Dudley said: "A case plan has been prepared and we have received notification from Strasbourg. We know it will take a long time.

"And we are aware that by the time it comes to court there is a strong possibility that Moreton will already be closed.

"However, we are hoping an injunction can be put in place, so that at least we can safeguard Moreton until after the case comes to court."