Campaigners from Sussex are to lobby Parliament against the privatisation of council homes.

Tenants, trade unionists and other campaigners will join the rally outside Westminster Central Hall in London on January 29.

They will be urging the Government to put more investment into the council housing stock.

Brighton and Hove City Council, which has 13,098 homes under its control, has not yet made a decision on what will happen to them.

Other UK local authorities have transferred their stock to private housing associations or similar schemes after balloting their tenants.

Last year, the city council commissioned consultants HACAS Chapman Hendry to look at options for the future of its housing. If the council carries on running the stock itself, it will have trouble finding the cash to meet the Government's housing targets.

The experts say it needs £70 million to meet the new decent homes standard by the year 2010. Many individuals and organisations across the city have vowed to fight any transfer of the homes out of the council's control.

Ian Hills, a tenant who lives in Brighton, said: "I think this council will prevaricate and procrastinate about the future of the housing stock until after the election and then they will sell us down the river and push through privatisation."

Mr Hills believes that tenants face higher rents and accountability when they are transferred out of council control.