Two farmers made at least £1 million after they were allowed to dump rubble on public property free-of-charge.

Brighton and Hove City Council let Jeffrey Blundell and Ron Sweet tip tonnes of rubble at Shoreham Airport - without consulting its elected members.

It has emerged the men went on to pocket at least £1 million from a private firm which offloaded waste on two sites.

The city council jointly owns the airport with Worthing Borough Council although the authorities are in the closing stages of selling it to property group Erinaceous.

But only city council officers looked after the running of the business.

A report by the Audit Commission into the affair said: "While no evidence of deliberate wrongdoing has been identified, officers acted beyond their authority.

"The owning councils gave up a lucrative asset - tipping rights - for a peppercorn consideration and have foregone income of at least £1 million.

"Key decisions were not taken by members, record-keeping was weak, the council's own governance framework was not followed and there was little regard to minimising fraud and corruption."

The commission was asked to investigate by the council's director of strategy and governance in 2004 after councillors Don Turner and Jan Young, who sit on the Shoreham Airport joint committee, which oversaw the running of the airport, had questioned why no income was being received from dumping of rubble which had been taking place since 2001.

In September 2000, council officers began negotiations with the farmers, trading as S&B, to buy 70 acres of privately-held land to the west of the airport, which it needed for runway expansion.

The owners were willing to sell provided they were given tipping rights on an area of airport land to the north west.

The council wanted the land raised to prepare it for a planned helicopter pad, although this was never built.

The deal was prepared and agreed by the joint committee in April 2001 but it was never completed, for reasons which have not been revealed.

Negotiations ceased in 2002.

In the meantime, the tipping licence, which had been part of the contract, was granted anyway without the agreement of councillors.

Tipping started in July 2001 even though the licence agreement was not signed until March 2003.

In 2002, when the council wanted another part of the airport land raised to minimise flooding risks, officers rolled out the farmers' existing tipping agreement for this new section, again without charging anything or consulting councillors.

The licence was only for a year but tipping continued until late 2005.

Councillor Turner said: "Serious mistakes were made. It's very sad so much money has been wasted especially when we are having to put up rates."

Councillor Keith Taylor, who also sits on the airport joint committee, said: "This is the latest in an appalling history of bungling and ineptitude.

"It's sad to see no one is accepting responsibility for this debacle."

A council spokesman said: "We accept the findings of the report and regret correct procedures were not followed.

"The city council has already carried out its own internal audit and we welcome any useful lessons that can be learned from further scrutiny.

"We note the District Auditor makes it clear there was no evidence of fraud and has confirmed that, in his judgement, this was very much a one-off exception to the good financial governance of the city council."