Calls for a huge new underground city centre car park have been rejected.

Conservative councillors put forward the proposal during a meeting last night during which the first phase of a £100 million plan to rebuild City College Brighton and Hove was given planning permission.

They said enough parking spaces should be created beneath the college's proposed main campus in Pelham Street, near Brighton station, to accommodate the 2,475 staff and students expected to go there daily.

But the suggestion, put forward by Councillor Geoff Wells, was ruled out by the council's legal staff who said it could not be included as an amendment at such a late stage of the planning process.

The council's planning committee voted to give the college permission to develop a main building on its current carpark.

The complex will have a shopping arcade on its ground level with shops run by students on vocational courses.

A three storey "base" will rise above that with three towers climbing higher still.

The tallest, bordering Whitecross Street, will be nine-storeys and 44.5m high.

It will replace the eyesore Pelham Tower in Pelham Street, described by Coun Wells last night as a "60s shoebox".

The college will only be able to move onto phase two of its project, which involves demolishing its other buildings on the campus for housing, offices, a youth hostel, a cafe, public square and doctor's surgery, if it can assure the council it can provide 10,000 sq m of education floorspace elsewhere in the city.

It has plans to provide that space in new facilities due to be built at Brighton and Hove Albion's new Falmer Stadium but those, and the Pelham campus scheme, hinge on an application for £80 million in funding from the Government's Learning and Skills Council.

Fears were raised for the money after the LSC, which has been funding dozens of college redevelopment schemes across Britain, announced a freeze in its programme in December.

It is expected to reveal how it will move forward in April.

At last night's meeting City College principal Phil Frier said: "In recent discussions with Government we were assured we have been made a high priority for funding."