Thornbury Hospital campaigners are fighting on to stop a treasured elderly people's ward being moved to Bristol despite "sweeteners" from health chiefs.

NHS planners say they are prepared to lay on public transport for relatives and friends if they decide to go thorugh with controversial proposals to transfer Grace ward to Blackberry Hill Hospital in Fishponds.

Cash-strapped Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Trust wants to centralise mental health facilities for the over 65s at Blackberry Hill to help help it achieve a £2.8 million budget saving.

But officials claim the move would also lead to better care and would be patients' interests. They are now organising a public meeting in Thornbury on March 1 so that residents can have their say about the plans to transfer a total of 14 beds - ten used for inpatients and four for GP respite cases - into newly configured services on Blenheim and Berkeley Wards at Blackberry Hill Hospital.

A spokesman said officials were aware that transport to and from Fishponds was of major concern in Thornbury and district.

"Transport will be provided for people affected by this proposal," he said.

"Options for this are currently being explored."

Leading Save Grace Ward campaigner Shirley Holloway - deputy town mayor and chairman of Thornbury Hospital League of Friends" - said she doubted whether the prospect of transport would "buy off" opponents of the plan.

"What makes Grace ward such a wonderful facility is that people can pop in to see loved ones and friends at virtually any time of the day and sometimes a visit lasting just a few minute is all that is needed," she said.

"A bus service to Fishponds would mean that visits would be more controlled. People would only be able to go at certain times and the informality, flexibility and convenience would be lost.

"Grace ward fulfils a great need and people are simply not happy about having to make the trek to Blackberry Hill, despite all the assurances that it will lead to better standards of care. There are no complaints about Grace Ward the way it is at the moment."

Cllr Holloway said the fight to save the ward would go on until the final decision was made. "What is so distressing is that they seem to be doing this on financial grounds and not thinking abnout the patients," she said.

The March 1 meeting (Armstong Hall, 7-9pm) is being held by the Avon and Wiltshire Partnership in conjunction with South Gloucetershire Primary Care Trust as part of a public consultation which runs until April 2005.

Chris Born, chief executive of Bristol North PCT and chairman of the Mental Health Services Transformation Project, said: "We believe that our proposals can speed up some of the improvements we want to make to these services with some real benefits for local people experiencing mental distress, and their families.

"Although financial pressures facing the mental health trust were the catalyst for change, the proposals have the potential to deliver genuine improvements to local mental health services.

"In South Gloucestershire they offer the opportunity to provide an integrated older adults service on the Blackberry Hill Hospital site which will offer separate facilities for older adults with functional illness, such as depression, and organic illness such as dementia. It will also be possible to provide separate accommodation for men and women, offering an enhanced standard of care.

"We are keen to hear everyone's views on the proposals, and I hope people will be able to attend the meeting or send in their views."

Copies of the consultation document are available by calling 0117 928 6627 or online at www.awp.nhs.uk

Comments can be sent to project co-ordinator Charlotte Boardman, Mental Health Services Transformation Project, Barrow Hospital, Bristol BS48 3SG.