People are being urged to support a campaign to stop Britain replacing its Trident nuclear warheads.

The Green Party has called on Brighton and Hove residents to back a motion asking the Government not to update its nuclear weapons.

A motion goes before the city council next month asking councillors to agree to tell the Prime Minister that the city is opposed to further nuclear armament.

Councillor Keith Taylor, co-principal speaker of the Green Party and representative to the UN Association of Peace Messenger Cities, said: "The Green Party believes the decision to replace Trident would actively promote nuclear weapons proliferation and trigger a new nuclear arms race.

"We believe now is the time to take the initiative to make a safer world, to choose security systems more appropriate for our needs. Trident is part of the problem. It is definitely not part of the solution."

Coun Taylor told Greenspeak, a monthly environmental discussion group in Brighton, that missiles on each of the four Trident submarines contained eight times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, which killed 140,000 people.

Coun Taylor said: "If all the warheads were fired at once from one submarine, they could potentially kill a population the size of the UK.

"It is said by critics that if we did not have our nuclear arsenal, we would be the subject of blackmail. There are 184 countries that don't have nuclear weapons - they seem to be all right."

Trident is due to reach the end of its service life in the 2020s. The Government has said it will decide whether to replace it by the end of the year.

The Green Party wants a full parliamentary debate and vote and says the £25 billion would be better spent on welfare services, some in Brighton and Hove.

The University of Sussex Student Union is organising a trip to blockade Faslane, the Scottish naval base that is home to the Trident submarines, on November 25 and 26. A public meeting takes place tonight at the university's Falmer House debating chamber at 6pm.

It is part of a year-long protest by groups all over the country "to highlight the hypocrisy of the UK Government over weapons of mass destruction". It was started on October 1 by veterans of the Greenham Common peace camp.