CAMPAIGNERS from across Lancashire opposed to the proposed closure of 35 homes for the elderly were today due to launch a protest outside County Hall.

The move came as the Lancashire Care Home Association claimed that there will not be enough private beds in 2007 to cope when around 600 people may have to leave their council run homes.

Homes in Hyndburn facing the axe are Acron Lodge, Accrington, Hill Top, Baxenden, Peel Court, Oswaldtwistle, and Northlands, Great Harwood.

The Liberal Democrat-organised action will take place ahead of a meeting of the full county council, during which the controversial care home closures will be discussed.

Unions today predicted a big turnout, with a UNISON leader proclaiming: "I have never seen strength of feeling against something like this before."

At the meeting, Liberal Democrat leader Coun David Whipp will demand that the ruling Labour group abandons its closure consultation, set up in the run up to a final decision in July.

The ruling Labour group wants to close 35 of its 48 homes in Lancashire, including 19 in East Lancashire, along with day care facilities, in a bid to raise £14.5million.

The county council has said the money will be spent on repairs and bringing the remaining homes up to new government standards due to be introduced in 2007. Under the proposals, pensioners will be moved into private care or looked after in their own homes.

But MPs have claimed the proposals were badly thought out and presented and rushed, with hundreds of shocked pensioners being told they may have to move before the scheme had been properly thought through.

Coun Whipp said: "There are three powerful arguments to stop this crazy plan. First, because the meetings that took the decision in the first place were secret. Second, that the county's own advisers told them that the consultation was wide open to judicial review. Third, that new Government Guidance -- issued after the Cabinet's formal decision -- undermines the whole basis of Labour's case.

"In light of this I am demanding that the Labour County Council now withdraw this consultation, lift the threat of closure from Lancashire's homes and allow our old people to live the last years of their lives in peace."

Carole Lukey, from Unison in Lancashire, said: "If these plans go ahead in their current form, then 1,200 jobs will be lost. If those jobs were going in manufacturing, there would be outrage. We have held meetings with our members and I never seen strength of feeling against something so high."

A letter sent to care home owners by Lancashire County Council has ordered home owners to 'decide whether you can justify spending money to upgrade or whether you are going to exit from the residential homes market.'

The Lancashire Care Association, whose members account for 400 homes in Lancashire, claims the letter is a 'bombshell' for home owners, many of who face a bleak future. Chairman Frank Hessey said: "When banks get wind of the fact business is drying up they will just begin calling in loans and overdrafts and homes will close overnight. Residents will literally end up on the front lawn with nowhere to go. Homes cannot survive on one new admission a year. It is effectively signing a death warrant for homes.

Coun Chris Cheetham said today: "If banks do get edgy, then home owners have to ask how this story came to be in the Press. We certainly didn't release the letter. We are not telling homes to close. We are telling them what is going to happen and giving them time to change."