MORE than 100 residents gathered for a demonstration in a bid to save a former care home which is subject to plans to be turned into a hostel for asylum seekers.

Campaigners gathered with placards outside the Lilycross Care Centre on Wilmere Lane, Widnes on Saturday, which is close to the St Helens boundary and a short distance from the communities of Sutton Manor and Rainhill.

Residents met to highlight the need for care homes for the borough’s growing elderly population.

The 60-bed care dementia home had its licence withdrawn by Halton Magistrates after Care Quality Commission inspectors uncovered a catalogue of failings, branding every aspect of care ‘inadequate’.

The plans to turn the vacant building into an asylum hostel were submitted to Halton Council in August.

Halton councillors will discuss the application at a development control meeting on Monday, January 16.

The plans, which attracted 774 objectors, have been recommended for approval by Halton Council.

Plans state the facility, known as Wilmere House, would provide temporary accommodation for asylum seekers while Home Office checks are carried out and will be run by Serco.

They add the hostel would be funded by the government and can accommodate up to 120 asylum seekers and would not to be used by Syrian refugees.

Campaigners say they have met with a potential buyer with the intention to reopen Lilycross as a 60-bed interim care facility to ease the burden of hospital bed blocking.

Leading campaigner Karen Forde, said: "The bed bocking problem we've got is horrendous. It's exactly what we need and it's horrendous that the council want to lose this."

Karen, 35, added: "The news brings a whole different context to the issue, Theresa May, this week spoke about the health service facing problems with an ageing population, by restoring Lilycross as an intermediate care facility it goes someway to helping the humanitarian crisis the Red Cross has alluded to.

"To approve this application would be a moral injustice.”