A LEADING campaigner who wants to go back to the table for talks with council chiefs in a bid to keep open the four Blackpool rest homes is furious nobody has replied to her letter.

Maureen Horn, chairman of the Caring Alliance for Rest Home Elderly (CARE), said Council leader George Bancroft and Coun Roy Fisher had not bothered to reply to her letter asking for further discussions.

She feels that, if Warren Manor, Kipling Manor, Whitegate Manor and Low Moor Manor were to close, residents and future residents would not have a choice about whether they stay in a private or a council-run home.

Mrs Horn was responding to Coun Sue Wright's comment at last week's social services committee meeting when new proposals -- seen by many as a U-turn -- were put forward to keep four of the eight homes open. Coun Wright, the executive member for social services and housing, emphasised the importance of the choice element saying there should be a choice between local authority and private care.

But Mrs Horn said keeping just four homes open would not allow all of the present residents that choice.

She has vowed to continue to fight for the remaining four homes and is appealing to Blackpool residents and businesses to support them by contacting their MP and councillor.

CARE is organising another public meeting and direct invitations will be sent to all councillors, including Blackpool MPs Gordon Marsden and Joan Humble.

She said: "I am appealing to everyone in the town to stand up and be counted and to let your voice be heard.

"Should our efforts in that direction prove fruitless we can assure all concerned that we will continue to strenuously fight the closures." CARE is convinced an 11,000 signature petition handed to councillors by pensioners Alice Hill and Evelyn Brunt at the second meeting on July 12 was thrown straight in the bin. They are now arranging another, much bigger, petition as well as looking further into the legal situation regarding the staff as well as the residents.

"Our legal team are still very confident of their position, even in view of these recent developments, and we have a clear strategy which we will employ together with other means at our disposal in order to bring about a just end.

"This group has always been non-political but given that all the Labour councillors are voting for the closures while the Conservative and Liberal Democrats are voting against them it is very hard to remain so," she added.

Meanwhile, UNISON is still hopeful of putting together a survival package for the care homes despite being held up by the fuel shortage.

The bid to take over the homes by a co-operative were well under way this week as members of a co-operative agency met with social services bosses to gather information for their plan.

UNISON's Tony Garnsey and staff from the threatened homes are due to meet with the representatives from the Co-operative Development Agency at the Town Hall next week for further talks. They have been given a deadline of October 18 to put together their rescue package and submit it to the social services committee.

Anyone who wants to know more about CARE can contact Maureen Horn on 304382.