A climbing wall for jobless people could be torn down within weeks after nearby residents complained.

Objectors say the 25ft structure overlooks their gardens, breaches health and safety rules and is a noise nuisance when instructions are shouted to novices.

The wall was put up on the side of a house in Sutherland Road, Brighton, by Craggers, a climbing group which takes people on benefits, low incomes or with disabilities on adventure weekends.

Brighton and Hove City Council's planning committee will decide tomorrow whether the wall can stay but planning officers have recommended permission be refused.

Craggers co-founder Tony Hemingway, who lives in the house, said: "If it isn't approved it will be a real blow to the families that we support."

Mr Hemingway said he contacted the council about three years ago to ask if he needed planning permission and was told he did not because it was a temporary structure. The authority has now said that he does.

The group began fundraising and last year the wall went up and was given money for equipment by the city council.

Mr Hemingway said it was ironic that the same council was now trying to tear it down.

Andy Francis is director of RH Partnership Architects, part of ProHelp, a group set up by the Brighton and Hove Business Community Partnership, which helped fund and build the wall.

He said: "Something like climbing a wall is fairly adventurous and gives people a lot of confidence and self-esteem back."

Councillor Gill Mitchell said she had been contacted by neighbours who said it invaded their privacy.

She said the wall did not conform to health and safety standards and so enforcement action to tear it down was justified.

But she added: "I do support the aims of the organisation backing the wall but there are climbing walls in the locality."