The majority of councils in Sussex have been handed an above-average funding cut to their government grants.

English councils received an average 1.8% cut but Hastings (-6.4%), Crawley (-5.8%), Eastbourne (-5.8%), Worthing (-3.8%) and Adur (-4.4%), all received major cuts.

Brighton and Hove City Council received a 2.2% cut.

Meanwhile affluent districts such as Horsham (2.9%) and Mid Sussex (1.2%) received boosts in their spending power.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) said they were being “fair to all parts of the country”.

But the Local Government Association (LGA) said services would suffer.

LGA chairman David Sparks said “The savings of more than £2.5 billion that councils need to find before April will be the most difficult yet.

"We cannot pretend that this will not have an impact on local government's ability to improve people's quality of life and support local businesses.

"It is individuals who have paid the price of funding reductions, whether it is through seeing their local library close, roads deteriorate or support for young people and families scaled back."

A spokeswoman for West Sussex County Council, which received a boost of 2.6% in its funding grant, said: “It is broadly in line with what we were expecting – but we still have to look at it in detail.

“Our position remains that we are aiming to make £124m worth of savings over the next four years.”

David Elkin, deputy leader of East Sussex County Council, which had a 0.5% boost, said: “We believe we will need to make savings of about £16m for 2015/16 and a further £70million to £90million in the three years after that and will face some tough decisions to achieve these savings.”