Those who have carefully read the very good consultants' report on park-and-ride cannot escape the conclusion that none of the sites in the list are viable.

Braypool is out of the running because of planning considerations - it is north of the by-pass where the local plan specifically says there should be no park-and-ride and it would be in the national park.

Patcham Court Farm is considered to have fewer planning disadvantages because it is not north of the by-pass and already has designation in the local plan for commercial use.

However, apart from requiring the displacement of homes and allotments, it is also the most expensive, the total cost coming to nearly £3m and that does not include the running costs.

The decision at the policy and resources committee was made in the absence of any studies showing the cost-benefits of such a park and ride. The next stage is to further consider the options.

In any "consideration," I expect a detailed study of the following questions - who would use the park-and-ride and when (I suspect it would be mainly weekend use) -and what would be the environmental costs and how do they weigh in the equation?

Apart from the obvious costs for local people of traffic back-up and loss of homes and allotments already mentioned, I would also want to know estimates of the extra CO2 emissions caused by encouraging people to use their cars (at a time when Brighton and Hove City Council has committed itself to reducing CO2 emissions).

Park-and-ride is an outdated response and I cannot believe all that money (or even half of it) would not be better used developing other options perhaps linked to the rail system.

-Councillor Joyce Edmond-Smith, Brighton