Controversy has erupted over council plans to give bored youths their own 'bus shelters', with opponents claiming they'll soon be vandalised.

Mid Sussex District Council plans to fork out £30,000 on three aluminium-framed shelters with wooden benches, to be placed at teenagers' favourite hang-outs.

The first three are destined for Victoria Park, Bentswood and Ashenground in Haywards Heath but if the project is judged a success there are plans for more across the area.

Despite the innovative nature of the scheme it has, however, attracted fierce opposition.

Haywards Heath town clerk Carol Preston said she had received numerous letters attacking the proposals.

She said: "I think within days these glorified bus shelters will be overturned and covered in graffiti. These louts prefer squalor and dirt.

"They seem to need something to swing on, or sit on, somewhere to smoke their cigarettes and drink their cans of beer.

"At the moment they are going into the toddlers' playground in Victoria Park and leaving cigarette burns on the swings.

"Perhaps a sign saying no entry to over-12s might help but no one seems to have thought of that."

Peter Fitzgerald, chairman of the Ashenground Residents' Association, said lack of communication had sparked panic.

He said: "The district council sent out a letter saying it was going to trial a youth shelter here in Vale Road. Within days, a petition was put together, signed by 70 people, opposing the idea.

"Nowhere in the information the council sent was there anything about how youth shelters could reduce antisocial behaviour.

"I think the damage has been done and local people will not accept it now, which is a shame."

Resident John Burke, 65, of Ashenground Road, said: "We need more policing and better supervision of the council buildings they are trying to protect.

"They will simply wreck the new shelter they have been given and cover it in graffiti."

Burgess Hill Town Council has already rejected the idea.

Town clerk David Carden said: "We only manage one of the parks in Burgess Hill and we considered putting a shelter there but decided against it. One of the reasons was there had been a lot of antisocial behaviour in the area."

A district council spokeswoman said: "We want to give kids who are old enough to be out and about somewhere to sit and talk.

"The idea is to give them a sense of ownership so hopefully they will not cover them in graffiti. This is a project we are committed to."