Housing expert Tehmtan Framroze is asking the Government to approve more low-cost housing for the city.

The Argus revealed last week planning inspectors are not backing Brighton and Hove City Council's insistence that 40 per cent affordable housing should be provided in all schemes of ten or more homes.

This is because the Local Plan, which the council intends to contain the commitment, has not yet been adopted and because the figures do not comply with current Government policy.

Coun Framroze, housing strategy councillor in the last Labour administration, said the Government should make 40 per cent the norm all over the South-East, including Brighton and Hove, because of the crisis in the region.

He said: "Brighton and Hove has a long waiting list for housing. I am in touch all the time with people who are in desperate need."

Coun Framroze said there was almost no land for building as Brighton and Hove was hemmed in between the sea and the Downs.

When land did become available, it was essential some of it should be used for affordable homes.

Coun Framroze said: "I hope the Government will be prepared to recognise the gravity of the housing problem in the South-East.

"John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, has asked for more homes to be built in the south east and we must have many of them affordable."

Coun Framroze said there would be inevitable criticism that the private sector was being asked to perform a public service.

But he said housing associations would be building the affordable homes and much of their finance came from the Government-backed Housing Corporation.