A community health council is backing a citizens' panel which said it wanted the breast cancer unit to remain in Brighton and Hove.

A reconvened citizens' panel met last week and listened to new evidence about health chiefs' plans to move the Nigel Porter Unit for Breast Care out of the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton to the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath.

Bosses want to move the unit out of the city because it needs to expand and health chiefs said there was not enough space on the hospital site.

But campaigners fighting to keep the unit in the city identified the Rosaz House site in Bristol Gate, Brighton, opposite the oncology department at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, as a possible site for a breast unit.

When the campaigners presented their idea for Rosaz House to be used for a new unit, the panel agreed it would be the best option but if that solution proved not to be viable it would have to move 17 miles away to Haywards Heath.

Mo Marsh, chairwoman of the Brighton and Hove and Lewes Community Health Council, said the health council welcomed the panel's decision.

She said: "We are delighted with the citizen's panel judgement and the strength of feeling these services should remain centralised where the majority of the population of women are in Brighton and Hove."