NEW homes may have to be built in the countryside if Sussex is to avoid future social misery, academics warned today.

Local authorities are facing increasing pressure to release greenfield sites for development because of lack of space in towns.

A new research study has revealed the South is not meeting the need for housing and this could lead to increasing social problems.

Academics from the London School of Economics predict people will have to share homes and workers will move away from the region due to high property prices.

West Sussex County Council is due to launch a public consultation on housing need this summer.

Mid Sussex District Council is also carrying out a public consultation about where best to build 1,000 new homes by 2006.

Brighton and Hove Council is planning to spend around

£20 million this year to tackle its housing problems.

But the authority is also considering the possibility of housing and commercial development on the outskirts of town.

Environmental campaigners are against this idea because they say it will lead to an irreversible intrusion into the South Downs.

East Sussex and Brighton and Hove are supposed to find 37,000 new houses by 2016 but this figure could rise.

Authorities are awaiting Government guidance on recommended housing strategies.

A Brighton and Hove Council spokesman said: "This is one of a number of reports on this topic and we will be examining it.

"The question is, do authorities plan for demand or manage it?"

In West Sussex 73,000 homes have to be built by 2016.

The county council is formulating a structure plan which will

outline broad housing policy for the future.

The public will be given a chance to comment on this in the summer.

It will down to local town, borough and district councils to identify more specific areas for housing in their local plans.

A West Sussex County Council spokesman said: "The latest structure plan will not take us all the way up to 2016 or identify specific sites.

"But it will give an indication of how the authority wants to develop housing policy."

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