Neighbours in Worthing are demanding action over a house they say has stood empty for 46 years despite a growing homes shortage.

Residents say it is shocking that the three-bedroom terraced house at 43 London Street is still vacant.

They say the £150,000 home is owned by an elderly man who turns up on his bike once a month to look round.

The neighbours said he did not live there but occasionally stayed overnight, sleeping on bare concrete floors in the house, which is just a brick shell.

The downstairs front window is boarded up and the letterbox has been sealed with a piece of wood.

Edwin Funnell, who lives opposite, said the property had been empty since at least 1967. Another neighbour reckoned it was more like 1957.

Mr Funnell said: "What is the council going to do about it?"

Last week we revealed that almost 760 homes in Worthing were unoccupied, 300 of them for more than five years.

Last year the council invited everyone in the borough on the housing register to reapply. It received 1,598 applications.

Barbara Godden, of London Street, said: "I moved here in 1976 and it was empty then. I am told it is just a shell inside. A man comes along about once a month on his bike, and then goes off again.

"He did once put up a for sale sign and he was absolutely inundated by builders who wanted to buy it off him but he took it off the market again.

"That was about six years ago. It's terrible. I would just like somebody to be in it."

Neighbour Geoffrey Arnold-Jones said people living next door to the property had been affected by damp, forcing a number of residents to move out.

He said: "It has been like that for 46 years. He won't do anything with it. I am absolutely livid about it.

"The council never gets any answers. There is nothing inside, no floorboards or anything, and yet he has stayed there in the summer."

Another neighbour said: "He is not capable of doing any major renovations to that place. With the shortage of accommodation it is such a waste."

Haydn Smith, the council's assistant director of health and housing, said he was aware of the issue.

It might now fall under a new strategy where legal measures could be used to force a homeowner to improve his property.

He said 43 London Street had been deemed structurally sound but added: "The owner is apparently not interested in improving the property."

Council leader Sheila Player said: "High demand for housing in the South-East has pushed up house prices and rents beyond the reach of many residents.

"From June to September 2002, Land Registry records show that the average price of a property in this region rose by eight per cent. Prices increased by 26 per cent on the same quarter in 2001.

"With such a high demand for affordable housing, we have a duty to make the best of local resources, including houses standing empty."

The owner of 43 London Street was not available for comment.