Bradford Council has been threatened with Court action for breaching human rights if it presses ahead with controversial plans to shut three old people's homes.

Senior councillors were warned last night that the Council could be breaking the law if the homes, which currently house more than 100 elderly people, were closed.

Barrister John Martin, who represents some of the pensioners' relatives, told the Council's scrutiny committee that similar proposals in other cities had been ruled illegal in the High Court and Court of Appeal.

He said any decision to shut down the homes - Broadstones in Holme Wood, Greenacres in Clayton and either Meadowcroft on Rooley Lane or Woodward Court in Allerton - could be viewed as an infringement of residents' right to life and their right to a home under Human Rights legislation.

And he said the Council's failure to carry out detailed individual assessments of each resident before approving the closure plans could also be illegal.

Mr Martin told the meeting: "I would really not like to see the authority end up in litigation over this, but there have been a number of other cases in which key criteria and principles have been laid down.

"It is absolutely vital that the Council looks at case law before going ahead with these plans."

He claimed the Council was legally obliged to find alternative accommodation for all the residents affected by the proposed closures, before the plans were approved.

But he said: "I have been to a number of meetings where it has been freely conceded that no alternative care exists for people suffering from dementia in Bradford.

"These plans have been formulated without a specific assessment as to how each individual resident's care will be fulfilled or any effort to find out what they think."

Mr Martin claimed a High Court judge may rule that the decision to shut down the homes was 'irrational and illogical', and therefore illegal under English law.

He quoted a string of examples, including Plymouth, Chelsea and Walsall where councils and health authorities had been taken to court in similar cases.

"It is very important the Council is aware that courts have already begun to grapple with issues such as the closure of residential homes and in many cases the authorities have lost," Mr Martin said after the meeting.

Councillors on the scrutiny committee, which is to make recommendations whether to approve the closure plans, asked Mr Martin to provide details of the relevant case law.

And Peter Kay, the Council's acting head of services for older people, said he would be seeking "further legal advice" on the issues raised.

More than 100 protesters packed the meeting at City Hall to voice their disapproval at the plans

The Reverend Chris Howson, curate of St Christopher's Church in Holme Wood, said a legal challenge against the proposed closures would be the "ace in the pack" to play if necessary.

But he told the meeting the plans should be thrown out without hesitation.

"I regard the idea that we should be slashing these services as an insult," he said. "We should be holding the provision for elderly people in Bradford up to the rest of the country and saying we are proud of it."

And Dr Richard Shepherd, a hospital physician who works outside Bradford, warned of the dangers if elderly residents were moved from their homes. He said statistics showed that 30 per cent of elderly people died within three months of moving to a new home.

"We cannot allow lives to be put at risk just to satisfy a plan which amounts to balancing budgets," he said. "We need more homes, not fewer, and we certainly should not be closing them."

But Alison O'Sullivan, Bradford Council's director of social services, insisted the proposals were "not a cost cutting measure", and said money saved would be used to improve care for elderly people living at home.

"It is about taking investment from one part of the service and investing it in another," she said. "There is absolutely no suggestion that anybody who has been assessed as requiring residential care will not get it in future."

The scrutiny committee deferred its decision to allow members further time to visit the homes. It will pass on recommendations to the executive committee which is expected to make the final decision.