A homeless hostel could be shut down next year.

Brighton and Hove City Council has been advised to refuse an application to allow St Catherine's Lodge in Kingsway, Hove, to operate for another five years.

Instead officers have recommended the planning committee should extend the licence, which runs out next February, for six months while the council rehouses dozens of people who live there.

Sussex Police has expressed concern about St Catherine's, saying they were called there 96 times between February 2006 and February 2007, compared to 75 times the previous year.

The hostel is run by Top Class Investments on behalf of the council.

Parents and children sometimes sleep four to a room and have complained of cramped conditions, mouldy mattresses, damp, dirty kitchen facilities, fleas and cockroaches as well as people taking drugs and antisocial behaviour.

Jan Young, city councillor for central Hove, said 25 of the 51 rooms were currently filled with single men and women.

She said: "I can't see the point of us as a caring council putting our families in a building where you have got drug addicts, alcoholics and villains.

"Last year when I said that, someone on the planning committee said, well they have locks on their doors. I don't want to be part of a system where children have to lock their doors to be safe."

Coun Young said she would like to see the families moved to a dedicated unit.

People living in nearby streets have said the numerous police calls to the hostel have caused problems in the neighbourhood.

One woman, who asked not to be named, said: "Three or four months ago, there were always police cars. I am not happy about it."

St Catherine's, a former hotel, opened as a hostel in October 2001.

In a letter to the council's planning office, Martin Garrad, crime prevention design adviser for Sussex Police, said crime figures showed that there was cause for the local concern.

Since 2004, there have been 222 offences, with a 22 per cent increase from 2005 to 2006. These included burglaries, assaults, thefts, drugs incidents, robberies, breach of antisocial behaviour orders and an assault on a police constable.

Mr Garrad noted that there had been cooperation between hostel staff and the police and CCTV had been installed. He wrote: "I have no doubt that staff and management have made strenuous efforts to reduce local disturbance, however police records indicate that these efforts have not been successful."

Jeremy Clark-Lowes of JCL Planning, the agent acting for Top Class Investments, said: "It is a very important facility as far as the city council is concerned. Every time anybody has made any suggestion or comment about the running of the place, it has been responded to. It is difficult to see how my clients can do more than they have done."

In their report, planning officers suggest if St Catherine's was turned back into a hotel, it could serve contractors working on projects such as the King Alfred development and i360, both on Hove seafront.

A council spokeswoman said that if the hostel did close, most residents would be rehomed locally in private accommodation.

The planning committee will consider the application today at Hove Town Hall from 2pm.

Have you experienced problems with St Catherine's? Or do you think the hostel should stay? Have your say below.