Stamp duty on property and business sales worth up to £150,000 will be abolished in Sussex's most deprived areas from Friday.

Chancellor Gordon Brown, who announced the measure in his pre-Budget review yesterday, said it would help to spark "urban renaissance".

It will apply in the Marine, Moulsecoomb and Queen's Park wards of Brighton and Hove City Council.

Also exempt will be transactions in central St Leonard's, Castle, Gensing, Hollington, Broomgrove, Mount Pleasant, Maze Hill, Ore, Braybrooke and Wishing Tree in Hastings borough plus Littlehampton River and Littlehampton Ham in Arun district.

The exemption is designed to encourage families and businesses to breathe new life into the county's most rundown wards by making it cheaper to relocate there.

At present, housebuyers pay a stamp duty of one per cent when they buy properties worth between £60,000 and £250,000. No duty is charged on homes under £60,000.

It could save people wanting to move into one of the named wards up to £1,500.

Hove MP Ivor Caplin said: "This type of change in stamp duty is important if we are going to keep trying to regenerate different parts of our city and at the same time ensure these areas can compete in the commercial market.

"What I do not want to see is residential properties without any community.

"It is important they have the shops and the other premises which they need to be an active community."

Councillor Francis Tonks, who represents Moulsecoomb in Brighton, said: "This is great news. It will help people buying and selling property here."

Queen's Park councillor and deputy city council leader Jackie Lythell said: "I am glad Gordon Brown has recognised deprivation in much of this ward.

"Queen's Park comes very high on the deprivation indicators, particularly on health issues."

In a further announcement, Mr Brown said the Government was planning to "significantly raise" the new £150,000 limit for stamp duty exemptions for business transactions in these areas next year.

He added it was possible they could be abolished altogether.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Paul Boateng, said the measures would help to create jobs by attracting new business.

He added: "I am delighted to be able to say that business start-up, expansion and relocation will be made cheaper."

A total of 2,000 wards are eligible for the exemption.