For most people, watching the family home being demolished would be too much to bear. But Dave and Liz Mason were happy to lend a hand.

The "demountable" building on the Whitehawk estate in Brighton has been their home for the past eight years.

It is being replaced with a new energy-efficient home more suitable for a family of four.

The Masons lost their first family home in Carden Hill, Brighton, in the boom-and-bust housing market in the Eighties. They had to move into a council flat before taking the static mobile home.

Now the land the 29 mobile homes have stood on for 12 years has been sold to a housing association, which is building 36 energy-efficient houses, bungalows and flats.

The development is the culmination of two years of planning between the residents, eb4u, the Government regeneration scheme, Chichester Diocesan Housing Association and Osborne, which will be building the new homes over the next year-and-a-half.

Mr and Mrs Mason will be able to move into a new home - which they have helped to plan and design - on the spot where their demountable, No. 12, once stood.

Mrs Mason, 37, who works part-time for Lloyds/ TSB, said: "I have some good memories of living in the demountable because when the children were small they would all play together in the street.

"But the house was small and on a hot day, going inside was like getting into a hot car."

The demountables were tiny inside, with only a small kitchen, bathroom, lounge and two small bedrooms.

The new housing association home will have three floors, a lounge, kitchen/diner, three bedrooms, a bathroom, downstairs cloakroom, a solar panel in the roof, a garden and hard-standing for a car.

The couple are living in nearby Twineham Close and will be able to watch their new home being built.