Writer Chaz Harris has come up with the UK's answer to US TV hits Desperate Housewives and The OC.

The palm tree-lined beaches of California and white picket fences of Wisteria Lane have been swapped for the South Downs and Sussex countryside.

Frustrated with the lack of homegrown drama, Chaz, 22, of Oathall Avenue, Haywards Heath, penned Class, a look at the social circle in Scrace Valley - a fictional university named after a Sussex nature reserve.

Chaz said: "It's about an American family who move to Sussex from Boston because the father has been offered a publishing job.

"The three main characters, Becca, Kyle and Riley are all misfits who become friends.

"Becca comes from a nuclear family. She is quite sarcastic and angry because she has had to move to England and is living with her parents.

"Riley's mother is a psychologist and his dad died three years ago. Kyle is a gay character who is the life and soul of the dorms.

"There is also the mayor and his wife, who are the aristocrats of the social circle."

Since the beginning of the year Chaz has been writing and sending scripts to production companies, broadcasters and talent agencies in the hope of securing the £500,000 it would cost to make a pilot episode.

He came up with the idea after organising a focus group with some teenagers.

He said: "I never went to university but one of my friends went and she used to tell me all these crazy stories. I was thinking about making a film but then I thought it would work well as a TV series.

"I had seen Desperate Housewives and The OC and realised we didn't really have anything like that here."

Chaz has also written a supernatural series, Blessed and Cursed, similar to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the project had to go on hold while he looked for funding.

He has spent the last eight months in New Zealand trying to get a job with Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson on his latest film King Kong.

Chaz said: "It was just a case of pestering people and trying to find work but it was difficult, so I thought I would come back and start work on something new."

He has also worked for production company Miramax on blockbusters Cold Mountain, Kill Bill and Starsky and Hutch and set up his own company - Genre Vision.