Some time ago, the West Pier theatre burnt down, then the concert hall met a similar fate shortly after.

At the time, there was considerable surprise that neither fire was spotted until people on the promenade gave warning.

It now emerges from the West Pier Trust accounts that, astonishingly, last year there was no expenditure whatsoever on security.

It also emerges that the salaries paid to three functionaries total £60,000, with chief executive Geoff Lockwood getting around half that sum for a part-time job.

If a fraction of that salary sum had been spent on replacing the bridges between the sections, the fire brigade could have had access and done something to save the buildings.

Isn't it about time people in the trust and Brighton and Hove City Council asked themselves whether this was a reasonable and responsible distribution of the available funds of the trust?

It certainly calls into question the quality of judgment of the organisation and whether the council should be blindly supporting it in this pay-cheque profligacy.

-M Foster, Brighton