CAMPAIGNERS are appealing to health bosses to save their community hospital.

Homelands Community Hospital, in Crook, is earmarked for closure as part of a modernisation of care services for the elderly and infirm in South Durham.

Services have already been reduced at the hospital after elderly mentally ill patients were relocated to a new unit at Bishop Auckland Hospital at the beginning of the year.

But campaigners say residents cannot afford to lose the remaining services offered.

Jean Cowing has vowed to fight for the services. She said: "This place is very dear to my heart and I am very cross that it is going to close without a thought. We need people to come along to the public meetings and fight for this hospital."

Homelands is used by older people recuperating after treatment or waiting for a care home place. It also provides respite care for a small number of residents.

Its future is now the subject of public consultation meetings by the Durham Dales Primary Care Trust, the first of which was held on Tuesday. Health chiefs are considering four options including the closure of the hospital, replacing the care already offered with a similar number of beds at a new location or a number of locations, extra domiciliary care, or a mixture of beds in care homes and community hospitals in Stanhope and Barnard Castle with extra funding to support people in their homes.

The fourth option is to do nothing about the building, which even with more than £1m in repairs would still not meet modern standards.

Campaigner Jim Smith said that residents were realistic and realised that the 100-year-old hospital needed to be demolished.

He said: "We need a new unit offering the same facilities. The care given here is excellent and to expect the people of Willington and Crook to travel to Stanhope or The Richardson Hospital is unreasonable."

Anne Yuill, head of corporate services at the Durham Dales PCT said: "No final decision has been made. We are still in the consultation period and we want to hear people's views."

The next public meeting is at Willington Health Centre, on Tuesday, at 7pm.