Disabled people are being denied full access to half of Brighton and Hove's council buildings, claims a new report.

Figures supplied by councils to the Audit Commission reveal that only 50 per cent of local authority buildings in the city are designed for the disabled.

Council buildings include all public buildings owned by the local authority, from local offices to leisure centres, swimming pools and concert halls.

The figures, supplied by all 351 English councils for the Government's Best Value Performance Indicators (BVPI) 2004/5, show Wealden, Chichester, Crawley and Hastings are the only Sussex authorities offering full disabled access in more than half of their buildings.

Kathy Hemestretch, 49, from Hove, whose severely disabled son Kieran, 20, uses a wheelchair, has called the figures disgraceful.

She said: "It's such an effort going out anywhere because my son's wheelchair is huge.

"Able-bodied people can fit into things and shift sideways if the door is narrow but you can't do that in a wheelchair.

"The council needs to put disabled people first. The only time I've experienced disabled people being put first was at Disneyland Paris. When they built the theme park, they thought about disabled access before able-bodied access. It was a humbling experience to be there."

Five months ago, Mrs Hemestretch and her son received an apology from Brighton and Hove City Council after they were refused entry to a council meeting at Hove Town Hall.

She had been told they could not attend the meeting because there was no wheelchair access in the public gallery.

She had wanted to attend to hear the tributes to her late ward councillor Gerry Kielty, who she said had been an invaluable champion of disabled and elderly people.

The council said Mrs Hemestretch had been given the wrong information and would have been welcome to sit downstairs in the main chamber. The public gallery has since been made accessible for disabled people.

But many council buildings are not fully accessible. The Royal Pavilion has full access on the ground floor but no access on the first floor, which accommodates two restored Regency bedrooms and Queen Victoria's bedroom.

The Integrated Learning Disability Service in Palace Place, Brighton, only has wheelchair access to two interview rooms and a disabled toilet on the ground floor.

Kathy Goddon, chairman of Brighton and Hove Federation of Disabled People, said most main council buildings have been accessible to disabled people for years but there were still some obscure ones, such as those in North Road, that were not.

She said: "It means the council could never employ a disabled person in that location."

Ted Purcell, GMB union's senior organiser in public services in the South-East, said: "Many local councils have a very good record on disabled access and they have shown the way forward for the other councils in the region.

"GMB would like to see these other councils meeting the same standard. GMB would also like to see all councils employing more people with disabilities."

The figures reveal Brighton and Hove is 167th from the bottom of the league table's 351 English councils.

A council spokeswoman said that as a unitary authority, Brighton and Hove was likely to have a bigger and more diverse range of buildings than many of the other councils in the survey, such as smaller borough and district councils.

She said: "The council has carried out £990,000 of work to improve access since the figure in the report was published and its performance is above average compared to other unitary authorities. Brighton and Hove is ranked 17 out of 47.

"Currently, 54 per cent of buildings are fully accessible to people with disabilities and the council is committed to improving access to all of our public buildings over the next three years through a £1.65 million capital programme of improvements and adaptations."

The figures reveal that while every local authority building in Wealden has wheelchair access, just 25 per cent in Worthing are designed for the disabled, making it 64th from the bottom of the league table.

Cliff Harrison, assistant director of property and facilities management at Worthing Borough Council, said BVPI was not a good way of measuring disabled access.

Simone Aspis, the British Council of Disabled People's parliamentary and campaigns worker, said: "It is appalling that in 2006, many disabled people are being denied access to public buildings where the heart of local democracy takes place."