Thousands will have community services cut to pay for a referendum demanded by just 19 residents.

Lancing Parish Council will have to foot the estimated £2,500 bill for a parish poll into whether Britain should adopt the Euro.

A group of Euro sceptics from Lancing has forced it to pay for the referendum under an obscure law.

Parish clerk Richard Wickens said: "It is their democratic right to call for the poll and we can do nothing but pay for it.

"It is a substantial amount of money which could have been better used elsewhere."

Funds to pay for polling stations, staff, leaflets and ballot papers will come from money earmarked for maintenance of parish council land which includes recreation grounds, football pitches and car parks.

Mr Wickens said: "We receive about £15 per household per year from 8,400 homes.

"Money for maintenance and keeping up the appearance of the parish will have to be used."

But 76-year-old Denis Edwards, who has lived in Lancing for more than 50 years, said the referendum was essential for people to make their views on the Euro known.

He said: "If the Government is not going to give us a referendum on the Euro then we will force polls through parish councils instead.

"Councils are spending millions on preparations to enter the Euro but they have not bothered to ask the people what they want."

Mr Edwards, one of the first men to crash-land his glider in France on D-Day, was one of the 19 who supported the referendum at a specially called parish meeting.

Under the Local Government Act of 1972, a parish or town council must hold a referendum if six people call a meeting and ten support their resolution.

The referendum, which has to be held within 25 days, will ask about 14,300 residents if they want sterling to remain the currency and if they want the council to spend money on preparing for the Euro.

Parish clerk Mr Wickens said Lancing had so far spent nothing on such preparations.

About 100 parish councils are facing similar calls for referendums as part of a national effort co-ordinated by the Campaign Alliance for Referendums in the Parishes