Voters in Lancing and Sompting are to be sent letters with their electoral registration forms urging them to become organ donors.

Adur District Council is to join the Vote For Life campaign, a life-saving initiative aimed at encouraging Adur residents to sign up to the NHS Organ Donor Register (ODR).

The council has pledged to work with UK Transplant, a special health authority, to send donor registration forms to every elector in the district along with a letter from council chairman Liza McKinney urging residents to take up the opportunity to help save lives.

Councillor McKinney said: "I fervently hope this campaign is successful as it will save many lives.

"At least three and a half million people throughout the country will be receiving letters encouraging organ donation.

"Many organs are tragically denied to those whose lives can only be saved by a transplant because registered donors haven't informed their relatives of their wishes.

"Having a national register of donors makes sense."

UK Transplant chief executive Sue Sutherland said: "We are delighted Adur District Council is to take part in this highly successful campaign and we hope local people will respond very positively to it.

"Vote for Life became the third largest source of organ donor registrations last year and recent market research cited it as an ideal way to make one's wishes known.

"I would urge Adur residents to seize this opportunity to talk within their family about their wishes now rather than leaving it until it's too late.

"Your family would be asked for their consent if the time ever came and objection to organ donation is virtually unheard of if one's wishes are already known."

Since its launch in Somerset in 1999, Vote For Life has succeeded in encouraging a total of more than 650,000 voters to pledge to help others after their death.

Last year alone, more than 412,000 people responded to Vote For Life and Adur is among 300 local authorities invited to take part this year.

More than 5,600 people in the UK are waiting for a transplant that will save or transform their lives.

However, a serious shortage of donated organs means almost 400 people die every year while waiting for a transplant and many more die before even getting on to the waiting list.

The idea of circulating ODR forms with annual electoral registration forms is the brainchild of Councillor John Meikle, of Taunton Deane Borough Council, where it was first piloted four years ago.

The Government has set a target of enrolling 16 million potential organ and tissue donors on the ODR by 2010.

For further information contact UK Transplant Communications on 0117 9757470 or on 0117 9757475.