Tony Mernagh thinks the proposal for a park-and-ride site at Braypool is a question of animals versus people (The Argus, April 26). It is actually a question of cars and pollution versus people and health.

It is true, the park-and-ride scheme has been used in other towns but not always successfully.

Oxford has vast park-and-ride sites outside the city but still has town-centre congestion and the boring, flat fields outside Oxford are nowhere near as attractive as the South Downs.

The Brighton and Hove Bus Company is interested and in favour of the park-and-ride site, not least because it would provide the "ride" aspect of the scheme.

Tony Mernagh didn't explain how a park-and-ride site on the outskirts of the city would single-handedly take out about 700,000 vehicle movements from the city centre. It could only achieve this if the number of parking spaces constructed on the park-and-ride site were removed from the city centre - yet that is not part of the proposal.

Mr Mernagh's calculations suggest a park-and-ride site at Patcham would remove 300 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from the town centre but presumably this carbon dioxide would be transferred to Patcham instead.

Many of the eight million visitors who come here every year, can reach Brighton by other means. There is parking at railway stations along the east and west coastway and along mainline railways.

In Denmark, towns which have increased their pedestrian facilities have found doing so attracts far more visitors.

-Selma Montford, Hon Secretary, The Brighton Society