Landlords in Worthing's town centre pubs have united to drive out drug users following a rise in the number of drinkers caught with cocaine.

Although relatively few people are being arrested in Worthing's nightspots for possession of the class A drug, the Town Centre Pubwatch has announced it will ban anyone found with cocaine from all 35 of its members' pubs.

A spokesman said: "Following a recent meeting of the 35 town centre licensees it was unanimously agreed that anyone found in possession of Class A drugs in any of the town centre pubs would automatically be on the Town Centre Pubwatch List.

"The Town Centre Pubwatch have also asked if police drug dogs can be made available for the Chapel Road area on Friday and Saturday nights."

Sussex Police licensing officer Mike Webb said: "It has become apparent that there is a bit of cocaine about and it's apparent that it is being used by a lot of people recreationally.

"They are taking it out to the pubs with them and getting caught in possession of it.

"The message from licensees is that if you get caught with class A drugs of any description and get arrested by the police as a result - even if you are only cautioned - you are going to get on the Pubwatch banned list.

"I'm not saying Worthing is awash with cocaine but there have been several incidents recently of door staff finding people with cocaine.

"Over a period of a month or so we have had four cases from town centre pubs of people being stopped and checked and found in possession of cocaine.

"You could say that's not a lot but you could say that considering that in the six months before that there was absolutely nothing, you can see an interesting trend."

Worthing district commander Russ Whitfield said: "Worthing district police have a number of initiatives in place with regard to tackling town centre late night crime.

"We would welcome any suggestions from Pubwatch or any other organisation to help in this regard."