Bosses at a home for disabled old soldiers have suffered a setback in their quest to build a £5 million extension.

Worthing Borough Council planners said the design and scale of the new ward annexe at Gifford House did not come up to scratch.

Councillors will be urged to reject the scheme, tabled by the Queen Alexandra Hospital Home charity for disabled ex-servicemen, today.

Permission is being sought for the two-storey extension after the Government introduced regulations for care and rest homes.

A spokesman for the Queen Alexandra said: "The hospital needs to update its existing ward facilities with the resultant loss of 25 bed spaces out of a current total of 60.

"The new annexe is required to compensate for this loss of rooms in the existing wards and to maintain capacity for the future.

"In order to continue its programme of care the hospital requires a new annexe providing a minimum of 22 single rooms with associated nursing and leisure facilities.

"The new development requires the demolition of redundant Sixties buildings and the reconstruction of existing garages to accommodate the hospital ambulances and coaches and the reconfiguration of the Eighties ward block to the west of Gifford House."

The development would more than double its parking to 38 spaces and a courtyard would be created.

Staff at Gifford House, in Boundary Road, which cares for old soldiers, sailors and airmen, are raising funds to pay for the extension with en suite rooms.

But many of its residents, as reported in The Argus, say they would prefer to live in the existing accommodation where they share rooms with friends.

Residents of Edwardian Highgrove Gardens, which is to the north of Gifford House, said they were shocked by the height and size of the annexe.

They said they would be overlooked by a series of first-floor bedrooms, restricting natural light.

A planning report concludes: "Officers do not consider traditional design is essential for the new annexe.

"But it is not considered the design of the development is of the quality necessary given its siting adjacent to a building of significant merit."

Staff at Gifford House declined to comment until after today's meeting was concluded.

l Last year's mayor, Councillor Valerie Sutton, is presenting £4,000 to Gifford House on Thursday.

The money, raised during her year in office, will be used to buy a special gel-filled mattress, which stops patients developing bedsores.