One of the enduring tales about Brighton and Hove is that it houses many children who have never seen the sea even though it is on their doorsteps.

I rather fancy this is apocryphal but I would be far less surprised if there were many youngsters who had never taken a walk in the country.

Yet for many of them, living on the big estates such as Moulsecoomb, Whitehawk and Hollingdean, the country is even easier to reach than the Channel.

There is Devil’s Dyke, Southwick Hill, Sheepcote Valley, Ditchling Beacon and Stammer Park all accessible by car within a matter of minutes and all served by public transport.

Yet Brighton does not make the most of this glorious swathe of countryside on its doorstep and visiting it can prove a let down.

This is in spite of the fact that Brighton and Hove owns most of the downland including some outside the city boundary.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment is Stanmer Park, in the council’s hands since 1947 when it was sold at a knockdown price by the Earl of Chichester.

Since then the council has disposed of large tracts for the building of the Brighton bypass and Sussex University, neither of which has done much to enhance its beauty.

The university is an ugly scar on the landscape with Sir Basil Spence’s original buildings now looking dire and dated. The downland dual carriageway damaged the woods so badly that they will never be the same again.

Brighton has also disposed of Stanmer House, a handsome Palladian building, to millionaire businessman Mike Holland, who has restored it beautifully but at a price which includes limited public access.

There have been constant plans for improving the park which has so much potential but it remains in a rather sorry state.

The car parking is a disgraceful mess with small areas besides the main access road littered with vehicles. There is a bus service but it only runs hourly. A shuttle from Lewes Road might be more useful.

The village should be delightful but is strangely unwelcoming while the glasshouses are hidden away behind a corner. The even more interesting ecological attractions are ignored by thousands of visitors who do not know they are there.

Farm animals, once a big draw for young children, have gone. I’d like to see some attempt to create a new living centre here so that youngsters could realise the importance of agriculture to their lives.

Little effort is made to direct visitors on to the maze of paths and tracks which extend all the distance from the village on to the South Downs Way a couple of miles to the north.

Some circular routes were devised a decade or more ago for walkers but I have never met anyone who has used them.

Even less attempt is made to give visitors, who may not know much about the Downs, a chance to learn more about them. The area is crying out for a countryside centre.

Recently I went to the Queen Elizabeth Countryside Park which has some similarities with Stanmer. It is by a main road (the A3) in Hampshire and has good links to the South Downs Way. There is an excellent visitor centre and gift shop.

Trails abound and there are plenty of animals for children to see including sheep and deer. Lovely clearings have been created in the woods so that people can play in the glades.

Closer at home is Tilgate Park at Crawley, consistently highly rated by readers of The Argus and with good reason.

I know people in Brighton who take their children more than 20 miles to Tilgate rather than bother with the bucolic shabbiness of Stanmer.

Tilgate has lakes, animals, playgrounds and space for play all enclosed in a natural setting close to the A23.

Although much smaller, Southwater Country Park near Horsham also has much to teach Brighton about how to attract visitors and make them feel at home.

Sheepcote Valley in Brighton is also a mess. Constantly earmarked for development, it still retains something of the atmosphere it had years ago when it was a rubbish tip.

The other three countryside tractions I mentioned are all owned by the National Trust and it has had time to make them better.

Ditchling Beacon is the highest point on the Downs in Sussex and has great views on a clear day, yet it feels lost and unloved.

Its car park is cramped and small. There is nowhere to eat or drink. It would not be impossible to sink a small centre into the ground and to landscape the car park so that it was less of an eyesore.

The Trust did well to get the Government to build a proper tunnel under Southwick Hill but has done little after that. Access is peculiarly difficult and the ways in are not properly marked.

There is an embryo countryside centre being developed at Mile Oak Farm which should be encouraged and the Trust could do much more to tell visitors about the tremendous natural downland on the hill.

It may be possible to develop a visitor centre at Foredown Tower, not far away, now that this is being taken over by the energetic and enthusiastic local sea cadets.

As for the Dyke, Brighton Council sold it to the Trust in the 1990s so that it would be properly managed.

The Trust has integrated the estate into its other land holdings at Fulking, Saddlescombe and Newtimber.

With others, it has managed to maintain the no 77 open top buses from Brighton to the Dyke which are both delightful and popular.

But it has singularly failed to remove confusion around the Dyke Hotel which is where most visitors arrive.

Some really radical solutions are needed here including moving the car parks to a more secluded site east of the main buildings. Another centre is essential to tell people all about the legend of the Dyke and its fascinating history over the centuries.

As for Saddlescombe, it is simply not good enough to open it to the public just a couple of times a year. It is an unspoilt small village that has the same potential as Stanmer to be made into an attraction.

I have high hopes that the new South Downs National Park authority will be able to do something about the dereliction of the countryside around Brighton and Hove where the Trust and council have failed.

It should be possible to make the lovely landscape of the Downs more accessible to people who know little of its charms while enhancing its beauty.

There is a difficult balance to maintain here between conservation and tourism but Hampshire County Council has shown at the Queen Elizabeth Country Park how it can be done – for everyone and not just deprived children.