Urgent meetings are being held to safeguard scores of jobs at closure-threatened Shoreham Airport.

Councils have been given an ultimatum - sign over the lease to new operators or the airport will shut.

But Brighton, Hove and Worthing councillors are having to make a decision without seeing all the background financial information.

Brighton and Hove City Council, which owns twothirds of the freehold, and Worthing Borough Council, which owns the rest, are being urged to transfer the lease to Albemarle Shoreham Airport Ltd.

The airport went into administration last month after its owners, the Erinaceous Group, was reported to have debts totalling more than £250 million.

Trading in Erinaceous shares was suspended when its price fell to little more than 1p each and accountancy firm KPMG stepped in. The day after Erinaceous went into administration the airport was sold to Albemarle and immediately reopened for business.

A report to councillors said Albemarle had a vested interest in ensuring the airport remained open and seeing the business developed to protect their investment and reputation. But the firm had yet to file accounts that could independently verify its financial standing and was unable to provide a parent company guarantee.

Despite this concern, the councils were reluctant to take back and run the airport at a loss of £500,000 a year.

The administrators also said they would close the airport if the transfer to Albemarle was refused.

Worthing councillor Paul Yallop said: "I got involved in this quite early and I was quite pleased the airport was reopened but it is a difficult situation because we need to make sure the staff in and around the airport do not lose their jobs. The people who are running the airport at the moment are running it on the understanding that they are doing it at their own risk.

"The main problem is the commercial property side of it already appears to have been split apart from the main airport operation. For it to work they need to be together."

On Friday, Brighton and Hove's policy and resources urgency sub-committee met to discuss the transfer of the lease, which officers recommended should go ahead.

Today, a special cabinet meeting was being held at Worthing to work out the best way forward.