Elderly people are being forced out of their homes after their flats began to fall apart.

Residents in Denmark Road, Portslade, fear they will have to move away from the place they have called home for years after they were ordered to vacate the flats after gaping cracks emerged in the walls.

Many are angry Brighton and Hove City Council did not act sooner to prevent their flats falling into a state of disrepair.

Some of the fractures in the masonry are so wide, residents can see through walls or floors.

Structural problems have become so bad, the council has decided it has to vacate residents, many of whom do not want to move, to allow workers to carry out a thorough check on all of the 20 one-bedroom flats during the next three months.

The council said housing officers would do their best to find residents new homes in the same area.

However, many of the elderly at Denmark Road fear they could end up in a home or too far from friends and family.

Florence Binstead, 92, is scared she will be put into a home after she was told to move out of the flat where she has lived for 32 years. She said: "I can't do anything myself, I have got a home help, I can't see, I can't walk and I cant hear very well. I do not want to go."

Jeremiah Hennessy, 76, said he wanted to stay where he was. He said: "I know a lot of people round here. This is a nice flat. I am not going to go into a home."

Frances Reeve, 69, said she was worried about being moved away from her family.

Residents whose flats are showing the worst signs of structural damage have resigned themselves to being placed in new homes.

Joan Pettett, 77, has a large crack in her bedroom wall and creaking floorboards in her living room. She said: "Nobody wants to move out but my flat is in such a bad condition."

Michael and Gwendoline Greenfield, have a large crack on the outside of their home, their back step is coming away and there is a 4ft drop below.

The council said the flats were beginning to crack because they were built on a rubbish tip in the Fifties, causing a type of subsidence known in building terms as settlement.

It will decide either to carry out repairs of up to £500,000, demolish or sell the flats.

Residents would be moved into permanent new homes.

Housing repairs manager Pam Montgomery said: "We do not expect anybody to move out before Christmas.

"My colleagues will talk to everybody individually to see what their housing needs are."

Another spokeswoman said structural engineers had been monitoring the building but action was not taken sooner because the council did not want to waste tax payers money on work which might not have been necessary.