A Hove tanning shop boss is leading a campaign to ensure beauty salons aren't breaching harmful UV ray emission laws.

Jemma Garrett of the Sun Lounge in St Aubyns, is urging her beauty counterparts to stick to the legal limit for UV ray emissions on sunbeds instead of cranking up exposure levels in search of instant tanning results.

The current legal limit of 0.3 watts per square meter is equivalent to summer midday sun in the southern Mediterranean.

But a recent Trading Standards investigation in the north of England found seven out of ten sunbeds breached the threshold by more than three times in some cases.

Brighton and Hove City Council said it wasn't required to proactively inspect all sunbed premises in the city, but it did investigate any complaints made by the public.

However Ms Garrett is calling for compulsory compliance testing by trading standards teams regardless of complaints.

She said: “By setting sun beds dangerously high in order to get an instant result for clients, experts have warned that exposure to such high emissions like 1.2 watts, four times above the legal limit, could multiply the risk of developing skin cancer.

“These failures are shocking dangerous.

“We make sure all our booths and sun beds comply with this new European standard and it will be great if all other salons did the same.

“For safety sake we urge you to ask your tanning shop if they are 0.3 compliant before using their services, it's better to be safe than sorry.”

Gary Lipman, chairman of the Sunbed Association, echoed the concerns.

He said: “We have been blazing the trail for 0.3 compliance right from the outset, training and working with Trading Standards and Environmental Health offices throughout the UK.

“The picture is changing daily but more needs to be done. Many local authorities aren't testing compliance, and this must change.”

A council spokesman said the authority followed Government guidance on the regulation of sunbeds.

However he admitted it was not investigating any complaints into the issue.

The spokesman said: “When new national sunbed regulations came in a couple of years ago we wrote to all sunbed operators advising them of the new rules, and followed this up with a programme of visits to ensure compliance.

“However, we are not required to have a rolling programme of pro-active inspections of all sun-bed premises in the way that we do with restaurants and other food businesses.

“Our environmental health and trading standards teams investigate any complaints made by the public or any other evidence suggesting that risks are not being effectively managed by the operators of the premises.”

An average of two people under 35 a week are diagnosed with skin cancer in Sussex, with some experts warning frequent sunbed use is partially to blame.