Noise complaints in Brighton and Hove are increasing every year.

Last year Brighton and Hove City Council received more than 3,200 complaints from residents fed up with their noisy neighbours.

Tim Nichols, the council’s head of environmental health and licensing, said the figure was 10% higher than the year before.

He added that in 2005 the figure had been 7% higher than the previous year and in 2004 it had increased by 1%.

Speaking to a panel from the council’s adult social care and housing overview and scrutiny committee, which is looking into the issue of “studentification” in the city, he said: “It is becoming more serious.”

Mr Nichols was one of a number of council officers who gave evidence to the panel at Brighton town hall.

He said that last year 159 abatement notices, which ban or restrict noise, were handed out to residents. 16 prosecutions were also made and in two cases audio equipment was seized.

So far this year there have been six cases of equipment being seized.

However Mr Nichols admitted: “Our service is reasonably effective at stopping recurring problems but not that effective at stopping sporadic problems.

“To do that the service would have to be quite different to the one we have.”

Sergeant Mark Belfield, of Sussex Police’s neighbourhood policing team in central Brighton, said much of the noise suffered by residents from students occurred as they made their way home from nights out.

He said: “I think it is about educating the students, making them see the effect they have in the city and coming up with solutions to combat this.”

The problem of rubbish left out in the streets was also put to Gillian Marston, the head of CityClean, the council’s waste collection department.

She said households with more than five people could apply for a bigger wheelie bin and that new ways were been explored to highlight bin collection days.