The Government wants to change the system of funding for local councils so generally, the richer areas in the South fund the poorer ones in the North.

There's nothing wrong with that, apart from the fact that there are many pockets of deprivation in Sussex as bad as almost anything elsewhere and the cost of living is much higher.

So if the complex proposals become reality after a consultation period, Sussex will have been shafted by the Government once again.

Already it has become the dumping ground for thousands of new homes, even though it is one of the most crowded counties in Britain.

Now residents, whose council tax has been rising well above the rate of inflation, will have to pay even more for worse services in the future.

The Government, most of whose members hail from north of Watford, often does not seem to know or care about Sussex, believing it to be a green and empty land inhabited almost exclusively by wealthy folk who can well afford to pay.

It looks as if ministers are keen to reward their northern heartlands at the expense of Sussex and other southern counties.

Councils of all political colours should band together and present a united front, putting the case for keeping the current grant levels and even increasing them in areas of deprivation such as Brighton and Hove and Hastings.