More than 150 parents staged a noisy protest as councillors voted to keep a controversial school admissions system.

The campaigners vowed to carry on their fight regardless of the decision by Brighton and Hove City Council's Children, Families and Schools committee.

Parents from parts of Hove and Hanover, Elm Grove and Queens Park in Brighton, were disappointed at last night's decision to follow the existing criteria for secondary school admissions in September 2007.

A crowd of parents gathered outside the meeting while about 50 were let into the council chamber to hear the discussions. They claim the current system is unfair as they live too far away from popular schools to exercise any meaningful choice in where their children go to school.

A working group set up by the city council had proposed selecting pupils for Dorothy Stringer School in Brighton based on how close they lived to The Level.

It also proposed selecting half of pupils for Blatchington Mill School in Hove depending on how close they lived to the Sussex County Cricket Ground to make up for the uneven distribution of schools around the city.

A public consultation revealed 65 per cent of those who responded were against change and the working group concluded no changes should be made for now.

Mick Landmann, who lives with his partner Diane Kirkland and their children Charlotte, 11, and Jamie, eight, in Freshfield Road, set up campaign group Cause4EB last year to highlight the need for change.

He said: "It was a done deal. We already knew what they were going to say. We are going to carry on campaigning."

Another Cause4EB founder Paul Grivell, of Dawson Terrace, Brighton, said: "The perversity is that the working group came up with some really beneficial plans, but the council is too scared to implement them because of the fear of a backlash in their wards."

The committee considered but rejected, by eight councillors to two, an amendment proposed by Green councillor Richard Mallender to revert to the 2004 system where 80 per cent of children were selected from a schools priority area and 20 per cent from outside.

The committee agreed the working group should continue looking for alternative solutions for possible implementation in September 2008.

Parents from Fiveways in Brighton, who campaigned against change, said they were pleased with the decision but will continue to campaign to get the working party proposals thrown out for good.