A high-profile scheme to combat Brighton and Hove's housing shortage by moving poor families to Wales and the North has attracted just 16 in its first year.

The city council offered incentives of up to £3,500 to tenants who signed up to new lives under the Fresh Start plan, launched in March 2003.

They include five families who have gone to Wales, two to Leicester, two to Yorkshire and one each to Durham and Bolton.

Council officers behind the much-vaunted scheme, which attracted interest from 750 families at its launch, remain upbeat.

Councillor Jack Hazelgrove, chairman of the housing committee, said: "It's a great idea and has been a real success.

"If a local authority somewhere else in the country has empty homes and there are people with housing needs in Brighton and Hove who want to move it's common sense to put the two together."

The number of people on the city's council house waiting list has grown in the past 12 months from 6,000 to 6,500.

Sarah Postlethwaite, 17, of Bexhill Road, Woodingdean, has a three-month-old son and is considering moving to Wales.

She said: "I don't want to go but we haven't any other options.

"I would rather stay in Brighton.

"Everyone I know is here and you need a lot of support when you've got a baby.

"I am hopeful but I am obviously worried.

"We have never been there and we don't know what it's like.

"They should be keeping families together, not moving them away, but they say there is nothing they can do."

Her partner Gareth Sheppard feels moving away from Brighton is his only option.

He works at Top Man in Western Road and cannot afford private rents.

He said: "It's a bit sickening. We were both born and bred in Brighton and we both have to leave our families.

"We'll have to take what they are offering and see if we can make it work.

"We've no family there so it's going to be a bit of a struggle."

The couple have been together for two years and have been staying with their parents, along with son Dylan.

Mr Sheppard said: "He has just got settled and seems happy at our parents' and now we have to move him to Wales. It's a bit unfair on him."

Families are forced to wait as long as five years for a council home in Brighton and Hove but in other parts of the country houses are standing empty.

Karen O'Rourke, the council's housing initiatives manager, said: "The Fresh Start scheme has been a great success.

"We attracted interest from 150 people on the city's housing register who wanted to move to Wales, the Midlands or the North.

"Ten families have been moved into two or three-bedroom council houses, often with gardens, which is almost impossible to offer in Brighton and Hove.

"We have helped another six families find homes in the private sector outside the city.

"Sixteen families have been given a fresh start in some excellent areas, offering them a chance to achieve better quality of life for themselves and their children."

Social housing is under enormous pressure in Brighton and Hove.

There are 13,000 council homes in the city and as few as 900 properties become available each year.