A crackdown is being launched on antisocial driving both on and off the roads.

Police officers in east Brighton have received a series of complaints of off-road motorbikes and groups of young people gathering and causing a nuisance in and around Whitehawk in particular.

Through the summer Sussex Police will be running operations to deal with the problem by tracking down offenders and seizing their bikes and cars.

If people want to ride off-road bikes on open land they have to have the permission of the land owner.

Officers from the neighbourhood policing team and road policing unit, special constables and PCSOs, some of them in plain clothes, ran one of the first operations earlier this month.

They visited the Haybourne Road football pitches, Racecourse Hill in Whitehawk, Sheepcote Valley, East Brighton Park, Wild Park, the fields to the rear of Bevendean Crescent and the land to the north of Bexhill Road in Woodingdean.

A 17-year-old boy was spotted riding a quad bike on the road in The Avenue, Bevendean, and then onto a grassed area.

The bike was not suitable for use on the roads and the teenager, from Bevendean, was reported for driving without insurance and driving without a licence.

Off-road bikes were being unloaded from two vehicles at Sheepcote Valley to ride on the fields when road policing unit officers found them.

The people with them were warned that it was an offence to do so and that if they did they would receive warnings.

As the men were packing up their bikes, one was searched because he smelled of cannabis.

The 31-year-old and his vehicle were searched and four small bags of herbal cannabis and a small piece of cannabis resin were seized.

The man was given a £90 fixed penalty notice for possession of cannabis.

Officers also seized a blue Subaru Impreza that was being driven without insurance in Bexhill Road, Woodingdean, and a white Toyota Aygo hire car that was being driven erratically on the A27.

The driver of the Toyota was reported for speeding and driving without due care and attention.

Anyone with information about antisocial driving should call 101 or report it via www.operationcrackdown.co.uk.