Protesters are to make a final attempt to block an aqua zoo from building pools for seals and penguins.

Brighton Sea Life Centre has applied for planning permission to create the pools at its site in Marine Parade next to Palace Pier.

Campaigners will stage a demonstration ahead of the planning meeting to decide the application at Hove Town Hall next Wednesday.

A petition against the pools, containing more than 1,000 signatures, will be presented to Brighton and Hove City Council's planning committee.

Georgia Wrighton, Green councillor for Hanover and Elm Grove, said: "We feel it is an unsuitable environment for them.

"It is a listed building in a rather dank basement area. The seals and penguins would never see the sea.

"It is a very urban part of Brighton right in a tourist hot spot with cars surrounding it.

"If you think of it on a bank holiday weekend, it is so urban. You get a lot of drunken revellers in Brighton on Saturday nights.

"My worry is there might be people who think it is a good laugh to steal one of the seals or penguins or throw beer bottles into the pen.

"There will be a cover but it will be open at the sides."

The Sea Life Centre says it has no immediate plans to keep penguins.

The pools are for two seals, with an option to accommodate penguins in the future.

It said the pools, one of which would be 265,000 litres, would be of a higher standard than at the National Seal Sanctuary. There would be fabric roofs protecting the area.

Manager Toby Forer said: "We were sad to hear a demonstration is planned opposing our proposal to build a seal sanctuary and would argue that this project, and Sea Life in general, are very inappropriate targets for any protest purporting to be in the interests of animal welfare.

"The planned facility has been designed to afford the best possible living conditions for the seals it would house, which would also be cared for by highly trained and dedicated marine experts.

"As well as fulfilling a valuable educational role and helping promote seal conservation endeavours in the wild, it will also help ease overcrowding at another wildlife centre.

"Perhaps those planning this demonstration are unaware they are targeting the same company that orchestrated the return to the wild of former Brighton Aquarium dolphins Missie and Silver; that rescues, cares for and rehabilitates more than 100 stray, sickly and injured seals pups every year and has also rescued and rehabilitated other sea creatures, ranging from dolphins to sunfish and sturgeon.

"It seems somewhat ironic a demonstration opposing what is effectively a seal refuge should be planned at the same time as hundreds of harp seals pups are being bludgeoned to death in Alaska."