MPs are to launch a three-pronged campaign to save three respite care centres for disabled children in Oxfordshire after meeting a delegation of parents at Westminster yesterday.

They are to tackle the county council, the Government and the legal system to try to force a rethink on the controversial cuts.

The county's four Conservative MPs -- Tony Baldry, Robert Jackson, David Cameron and Boris Johnson -- promised representatives of campaigning group FORCe (Friends of Resources Centres) to do all they could to save the three establishments -- the Summerfield Centre in Abingdon, Sycamore House in Banbury, and the Chilterns Centre in Henley. They provide vital time when parents can have afternoons, nights and short holidays away from children who need constant care, without worrying about their children's safety.

The Tories will work in conjunction with Oxford West and Abingdon Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris who had to miss the meeting because he had to attend a House of Commons debate on the NHS in his role as his party's health spokesman.

The MPs are to target county council leader Keith Mitchell, county council chief executive Richard Shaw and Treasury Chief Secretary Andrew Smith, the Labour MP for Oxford East, in their bid to defer closure for a year, then secure the long-term future of the centres. At the meeting in a Commons committee room, delegation leader Ivor Sunman, from Sonning Common, near Henley, whose 11-year-old son Matthew has a rare autistic disorder, said the cost of refurbishing County Hall offices in Oxford would keep the three vital centres open until new funding for social services pledged in Chancellor Gordon Brown's recent Budget became available.

Wendy Preece, from Grove, whose 11-year-old son Nathan has cerebral palsy, said the costs of adapting the homes of new "family carers" where the youngsters could go instead would eat up any savings.

She and other parents were worried that alternative respite care options would not be as safe for the children. The delegation told the MPs that if the parents were unable to cope because of the closures, the cost of putting their children, unwillingly, into full-time council care would be £150,000-a-year per child.

Three such cases would remove any savings to the council.

Banbury MP Mr Baldry said he was convinced that the council was holding genuine consultation and promised to keep up pressure for a change of heart.

He also promised FORCe spokesman Colin Webster that he would demand to know exactly where the decision process was and when a final ruling would be made.

Mr Webster said the group was now preparing legal action unless there was change of heart. He is to seek to change the law to make providing respite care for severely disabled children a legal duty rather than an option.

Witney MP Mr Cameron said he felt the argument that the cost of closing the centres would exceed the saving was crucial in efforts to secure a reprieve for the service.