If you're looking for a relationship to last a lifetime, there's one Sussex town you might want to avoid, according to a new survey.

There are scores of factors which contribute to the breakdown of relationships, according to counselling service Relate.

Major influences include poverty and stress. Despite pockets of deprivation, these would not seem particularly prevalent along the South Coast.

So it might appear surprising St Leonards has the second-highest separation rate in the country, according to the new figures.

Not far behind are Hove, Littlehampton and Brighton, all with about one in five residents claiming to be separated or divorced.

Conversely, Sevenoaks - just over the border in Kent - is named as having the lowest separation rate by consumer information company Claritas.

On the surface, the findings were at odds with the experiences of Jim Wheeler, who founded the Crowborough-based divorce charity Aquila with wife Annette.

He said: "From our point of view in St Leonards we struggle to get people to come to our groups but in Sevenoaks we always have a waiting list.

"We were flooded with requests after being featured in the Mail on Sunday and I think the people who come to our groups fit more into the social band of Mail on Sunday readers."

Jim and Annette got together after Jim's ex-wife and Annette's former husband started a relationship.

They later formed a self-help group for people going through separations.

From Crowborough, this has now spread throughout Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

Despite the lack of enthusiasm in St Leonards, Jim was not surprised to hear of the higher separation rates all along the South Coast from Kent to Hampshire.

He said: "I would say coastal towns feature quite highly because they are like the end of the line, where people move to when they are trying to get away from their circumstances.

"St Leonards I am sure is high because of the much lower cost of property and is a place where separated people could more afford to live. Although that would not necessarily apply to Brighton and Hove."

Other possible explanations for the findings were put forward by Trish Owen the manager of Relate in Brighton, Hove and Worthing.

She said: "Unemployment and poverty impact on a relationship because they put it under added pressure. In Brighton and Hove there are lots of socially-deprived areas.

Brighton and Hove also has a transient population. There are lots of people that come and go and might move here after break-ups elsewhere.

"A lot of the cases we deal with are people leaving marriages to go into same-sex relationships. It may be that people come here because of the lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender scene.

"It is much rarer for elderly people to separate but we have had people in their 70s and 80s come to us for counselling. The bulk of clients are in their 30s to 50s.

"Traditionally seaside towns have been retirement places but, because of rising house prices, places like Worthing are becoming younger because people can't afford to live in Brighton."

Other reasons why relationships might break down vary from boredom to childhood abuse coming to the fore, Trish added.

According to the statistics released by Claritas, St Leonards has a separation rate of 24.7 per cent, behind only Birkenhead in Merseyside.

In Hove, 19.8 per cent are separated or divorced, in Littlehampton 19.4 per cent and in Brighton 17.2 per cent. All are in the top 50 places in the country for failed marriages.

A spokesman for the Office for National Statistics said the overall trend for divorce rates was a slight decrease in recent years.

He said: "Demographic factors that make marital breakdown more likely include marrying at a younger than average age, having a pre-marital birth and having previously been divorced."

There also seems to be no fall in the numbers of people wanting to get married.

The Rev David Guest, a spokesman for the Diocese of Chichester, said: "I do know there is no noticeable decline in people getting married in church.

"This is interesting because there are so many other places to get married now.

"In my experience in the diocese, people getting married in church now are more likely to think about why they want to do so.

"I would be interested to see a comparison of divorces among those who marry in church and those in a registry office."