A daughter will wheel her deaf and partially-blind mother to 10 Downing Street in a last desperate bid to get Tony Blair's help in saving her care home.

Norma Dudley fears her mother Clara, 87, could die if she is forced out of the Moreton Centre in Boscobel Road, St Leonards.

Every effort to save the centre has failed but now Mrs Dudley is hoping a last-ditch plea to the Prime Minister on Monday will win the home a reprieve.

She will push her wheelchair-bound mother, who has suffered several strokes, to Downing Street accompanied by Labour Hastings and Rye MP Michael Foster.

Mrs Dudley, from Walthamstow, East London, said: "My mother is so distressed that she has said she will kill herself if she is forcibly removed."

Approval to close the centre and evict the seven long-stay residents was sanctioned by Tory-run East Sussex County Council just days before Christmas.

The decision provoked bitter opposition from families who criticised the council's consultation process, saying it gave little time to make proper representation.

They claimed letters sent to the pensioners informing them about the plans were jargon-filled and failed to clearly explain the proposals.

The families won permission for a judicial review against the council's decision.

Their lawyers claimed in court that there was evidence to link moving pensioners from homes to premature death.

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

His ruling meant the council 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.

Subsequent 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 Court of Human Rights.

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

Now, with no other option open to them, Mrs Dudley is hoping Mr Blair will take pity on their plight and accept a petition signed by more than 4,000 people.

Mr Foster has suggested the £1 million government money be used to build on the existing site to incorporate a planned interim care unit.

He said it would enable the seven long-stay residents to continue living at the centre and the work of the Moreton Centre to carry on.