An emergency meeting will be held to try to save the last remaining pensioner from being forced out of a rest home.

Arun District Council is calling on West Sussex County Council to let 79-year-old Stan Smith stay at Nyewood House in Bognor.

Mr Smith has defied a letter from the county council asking him to leave the home, which is closing.

A motion to be debated at the meeting next Monday reads: "We are calling on the county council not to evict the one remaining resident from Nyewood House in view of his age and because of the strain and distress such an action would impose on him."

It is also calling on the Department of Health to explain its policy on elderly people's needs.

The statement adds: "It needs to examine urgently the needs of West Sussex's elderly population for an adequate range of caring and residential services and to ensure the funding is in place to meet these needs."

West Sussex caused a political storm 18 months ago when it announced plans to close Nyewood House, together with three other homes.

It promised the 40 residents as long as they needed to find alternative accommodation.

But Mr Smith and Peggy Rousell, 83, were still living there on September 1 this year, despite repeatedly being asked to leave.

Mrs Rousell has since left but Mr Smith refuses to budge.

The county council says it will not resort to legal action to remove him.

But the Tory group claims the cost of maintaining the "dinosaur" home, opened in 1970, is as great as providing social services for 60 people.