A council is poised to make £1.5 million from the sale of a former old people's home at the centre of a furious protest.

Details of the proposed sale of Nyewood House in Bognor were revealed by West Sussex County Council, a year after its last resident ended a lone protest to try to keep it open.

Councillors have been told the site is to be sold off for housing, subject to planning permission.

Defiant Stan Smith refused to leave the home after councillors voted to close it in 1999, claiming it was past modern standards.

Other residents gradually accepted alternative accommodation but 80-year-old Mr Smith held out in his ground-floor room for 220 days.

He finally agreed to leave only when the council won a possession order against him.

Supporters of a campaign group, set up to save the home, hailed Mr Smith a hero when he finally decided to quit the 43-bedroom home in April last year.

The home in Hawthorn Road was boarded up within hours of his decision to end his struggle.

Mr Smith died in December at a residential home close to Nyewood House.

It is not yet known how many houses are likely to be built on the site.

A council spokesman said: "Negotiations are taking place with a housing association and when these are completed the price will be disclosed."

Former Bognor mayor Sylvia Olliver, who backed the campaign to save the home, called for the money to be ploughed back into social services.

Mrs Olliver said: "We did not want the home to close and it should have stayed but now any money the county council makes must be earmarked to meet the needs of elderly people.

"I hope it will not just disappear into the pot and be spent on anything and everything when elderly people are not getting the help they need."