Council staff are stepping up their protests against a Parking scheme which will cost many of them £10 extra a week.

For more than a month, some members of Brighton and Hove City Council have been refusing to bring their cars into work on Thursdays.

People who work for the council at Hove Town Hall or its headquarters at King's House in Grand Avenue want help.

Unison, the local government union, is now saying members will withdraw cars each working day starting on Monday, the day when parking controls start in central Hove.

The union said it wanted to support staff who had no other means of getting into work and those who had been unfairly refused essential car user allowances.

Spokesman Steve Foster said: "We want to demonstrate that we will not stand by while further attacks are made on our conditions and show the need for radical changes in the council's own investment in transport choices."

"Any attempt to replace the current conditions of service with a worse package will be met with a ballot for industrial action of those affected.

"Parking charges mean the sad reality is that many low-paid or part-time workers, mostly women, are simply looking for work elsewhere where they will not be charged for the privilege of coming to work."

The council has met many of the union's concerns, such as meeting the parking expenses of staff who use cars to do their job efficiently and accepting reasonable flexible working proposals.

But it will not agree to other measures, such as transitional protection for low-paid staff who have no other means of getting to work, even though this is being offered to residents for the first year of the central Hove scheme.

Mr Foster said: "Councillors have voted for parking spaces for themselves and a 40 per cent increase in their allowance bill but seem unable to understand the feelings of staff who are expected to take a pay cut to come into work."