Two MPs are backing hundreds of parents calling for a review of an education authority's "unfair" school admissions policy.

Des Turner and David Lepper, Labour MPs for Brighton Kemptown and Pavilion, are supporting a campaign to stop a "postcode lottery" for school places.

Last month, The Argus reported children from east Brighton were not getting places at popular secondary schools because they lived too far away.

Parents said a change in policy at Brighton and Hove City Council from selecting children from priority areas for particular schools, which included considering how easily children could get to other schools, to a distance-only measure was unfair and put them at a disadvantage.

More than 1,000 parents signed a petition in protest and handed it to the city council on April 28.

Admissions criteria only apply to oversubscribed schools and include special needs, whether children have siblings at the school and, now, how far away they live.

With the forthcoming closure of East Brighton College of Media Arts in Wilson Avenue, there is no obvious secondary school in east Brighton.

In a letter to senior councillors and the chief executive, Alan McCarthy, Dr Turner and Mr Lepper said: "Parental choice of secondary schools has been denied to the residents of Hanover and Elm Grove, Queen's Park, east Brighton, Moulsecoomb and Bevendean as there is no secondary school within a sensible walking distance.

"The concentration of schools in the western half of the city means parents there have real choice, whereas those in the eastern half have none.

"We feel strongly that an allocation policy which so discriminates against residents of a large area of the city cannot reasonably be sustained.

"We therefore urge the council to conduct an urgent review of the policy with a view to revising it in a way that is fair to all and removes the postcode lottery from the system."

They added that they had not been consulted on the policy change.

Councillor Bill Randall, who represents Hanover and Elm Grove, asked for action to stop "unfair geographical exclusion" of children in east Brighton and, if necessary, open extra classes at preferred schools as well as an all-party review of the allocation system.

The item will be discussed at the next children, families and schools sub-committee meeting on June 6.

Parent Mick Landmann, who lives with his partner Diane Kirkland and their children Charlotte, ten, and Jamie, seven, in Freshfield Road, said: "Our concern is a review will take a long time. If it takes two years, that's hundreds more children let down.

"This is not a campaign against Falmer High School (where many children in east Brighton are being allocated places). It is not that we are not getting the best school for our children it is that some parents are not getting any of their three choices. It is about the principle of choice."

A web site for the Campaign Against Unfair Secondary Education 4 East Brighton has been set up at www.cause4eb.co.uk