Love-lorn council employees have been using their work computers to try and find the one.

Computers at councils across the county have been recording thousands of hits on popular dating websites including Match, Plenty of Fish and eHarmony.

Racier employees have also been taking a look at sites such as tinder, which users sign up to if they are looking for lust rather than love.

West Sussex County Council employees used work computers for almost 37,000 hits on dating websites Plenty of Fish and almost 32,000 hits on Match.com in about 100 days between June and September.

Chichester District Council has seen an explosion in website dating hits from none in 2012 to more than 2,000 in the first half of 2014 to Match.com and 1,900 to Plenty of Fish.

The district council’s computers also had five hits on tinder and two on grindr.

Match.com also proved popular with Arun District Council employees with more than 1,400 hits between September and the end of December 2013 and 753 hits in the first half of this year.

And saucy library users have also been getting in on the action with East Sussex County Council recording 603 hits through the authority’s publically accessible people’s network to a range of dating sites, including tinder.

Mid Sussex, Wealden, Rother and Eastbourne council did not record any hits, while Brighton and Hove City Council, which blocks access to the sites from its computers, had seven failed attempts to dating websites between March and July.

A West Sussex County Council spokeswoman said their policy permits “fair personal use” of the internet as long as there was no adverse impact on the employees’ ability to do their jobs.

She said: “We employ more than 5,000 members of staff so these figures need to be put into context.” An Arun District Council spokeswoman said staff can access the internet for personal use between midday and 2pm.

A Chichester District Council spokeswoman said: “The council does allow reasonable use of work systems both outside and during work hours.”

An East Sussex County Council spokesman said free online access provided in public buildings was filtered but residents are asked to take responsibility for their own actions.

A Brighton and Hove City Council spokesman said: “Personal use of emails and the internet is permitted but must be within the employee’s own time.”