Elderly people and carers who use a day centre earmarked for closure hope one final meeting with the county council will secure its future.

About 70 pensioners and their carers are devastated Downlands Day Centre in Peacehaven is due to close this summer.

Together with the Alzheimer's Society, they have called a meeting with Keith Hinkley, the director of adult services at East Sussex County Council, to try to persuade the council to think again.

Tony Evans takes his wife Dorothy, 70, who suffers from Alzheimer's, to the centre in Roundhay Avenue twice a week.

Mr Evans, also 70, from Peacehaven, said: "As a carer I am a prisoner in my own home. I'm lucky my wife is still mobile but I have to do everything for her.

"I feel totally let down by this decision. I'm not young, I've had two heart attacks and a bypass operation but they don't take account of that."

Maureen Garwood looks after her husband Cyril, 81, who also has Alzheimer's. Cyril attends sessions at Downlands twice a week. It is the only place he can take a bath.

Mrs Garwood said: "Without the centre Cyril would sit in our house 24 hours a day, seven days a week and so would I. That's not a life.

"I am saving the council hundreds of thousands of pounds by caring for Cyril and not putting him in a nursing home and this is the support I get."

Carol McHale, the branch manager of the Alzheimer's Society in Eastbourne district, said: "It's a lifeline for people.

"To say they can go elsewhere is not always appropriate when you are dealing with vulnerable people and problems such as incontinence. This meeting is our last chance - I just hope they will listen."

County councillor Phil Howson, who represents Peacehaven, said he had been fighting to save the centre.

He said: "Downlands is a popular centre in use about 87 per cent of the time. Unfortunately this is not about how good the centre is, it's simply about money.

"I have great concern about the carers in this town because this is their main source of respite care and it's not clear where they would go instead."

East Sussex County Council agreed to close Downlands in February after reviewing all day centres in the county. Pembury Road Centre in Eastbourne and Friary Day Centre in Rye will also close, saving the county council £650,000.

It says it will invest £100,000 in services and a further £50,000 in transport to make up for the loss of the day centres.

A council spokesman said: "Increasing demand for our services means we are facing difficult choices."

The meeting will take place at the Meridian Centre in Peacehaven on May 8.