A claim that only six people were sleeping rough in Brighton and Hove surprised aid workers. And it didn't take us very long to find seven.

First up is the shivering man with a tatty sleeping bag wrapped around his head like a bonnet.

He was number one during the night's count of rough sleepers.

Accompanying him is a woman with her head jammed into a snugly-fitting woolly hat, which does little to stop the biting wind whipping tears from her eyes.

A few paces further along St James's Street, Brighton, crouches a man drawing faint amusement from watching his three-legged dog chase after his mould-encrusted socks. Three.

He exchanges greetings with a stick-thin youngster in a balaclava and shell-suit top, hopping to keep warm and clamping his mouth savagely round an apple. Four.

A Big Issue salesman - instinctively, hopelessly hawking copies to dolled-up Friday night revellers - gratefully downs a cup of steaming coffee, before bounding off in search of somewhere to sleep. Five.

A disoriented, scrawny Lancastrian, with a severe crew cut and an even more forbidding glare, howls angrily to the world how he has "lost everything" before abruptly begging forgiveness. Six.

And another Big Issue seller, chatting amiably outside Safeway, resignedly reveals he sleeps "here and there" but has nowhere lined up yet that night. Seven.

It took less than 30 minutes to find more rough sleepers in St James's Street than Brighton and Hove City Council found in one night across the whole city.

The council's last one-night survey of Brighton and Hove's rough sleepers in January turned up just six - to the astonishment of the city's homelessness aid charities.

While we were talking to homeless people in St James's Street, many more were already gathering outside the night cafe at St Patrick's Church in Hove.

Up to 20 a night turn up each evening, anxiously counting down the minutes until the doors to open at 11pm so they can bed down for the night.

Some aid workers have estimated Brighton and Hove has about 60 rough sleepers every night.

I glimpsed the scale of the problem on a Friday night out with volunteers from Project Anti-Freeze.

The initiative, run by the Hove-based Off The Fence Trust, provides sleeping bags, hot food and drinks and clothes for rough sleepers five nights a week.

This year Project Anti-Freeze, which costs £15,000 a year to run, will have notched up a decade in operation.

I accompanied Paul Colburn, a volunteer for five years, and American Jeannie Freedlund, on the St James's Street beat.

The street has long been notorious for its parades of street-drinkers, heroin addicts and beggars, despite recent clean-up efforts.

At first glance, the street seemed dominated by the predictable hordes of best-dressed youngsters keen to hit the town's nightspots on a Friday night.

But as soon as Paul and Jeannie sloped up the road heaving their bags full of provisions, they were greeted by familiar faces desperate for help.

A woman giving her name as Zoco, 29, stretched a relieved grin as she spotted Paul and gratefully accepted the ham and cheese sandwiches held out.

Flasks filled with coffee and hot chocolate were broken open and Zoco and her companion David Davidson were offered their choice of warm clothes.

Both, like others I spoke to, needed no prompting to speak with contempt of the official rough sleeper count.

David said: "They're obviously looking in the wrong places - I could take you around and show you at least 30 homeless people."

Volunteers from Project Anti-Freeze are out on the streets of Brighton between 8pm to 10pm, Monday to Friday. About 50 people are involved, from cutting and wrapping the sandwiches to those delivering them.

High property prices and a serious shortage of affordable accommodation have been blamed for the city's high homeless rate.

As well as outreach work and day-to-day donations to homeless people, the charity has just been given a five-bedroom house in Portland Road, Hove. One person has moved in and three more are being lined up. Another house may be available later this year.

There are also hopes the trust could run its own hostel for rough sleepers, as well as extending Project Anti-Freeze to seven nights a week.

David Pavitt, who runs the Porstlade-based charity Crossover, has said 60 rough sleepers a night would be a more realistic figure.

But a council spokeswoman said: "According to the criteria we use, unless they're bedded down sleeping rough for the night, they wouldn't be counted.

"Although it may appear there are more people on the streets who may be sleeping rough, the majority would have some form of temporary accommodation.

"Over recent months the numbers have fluctuated between six and ten. The figure of 60 is far in excess of anything we have encountered."

She added that the counts were always conducted alongside members of the voluntary community, including Hove YMCA and hostel workers.