Brighton and Hove City Council has made a wise decision in eliminating the Countryside proposal for the new sports centre on the King Alfred site (The Argus, April 7). It would be wiser still to eliminate the remaining two.

I do not know what madness possessed the councillors when they decided to locate this leviathan on the seafront in the first place. The one thing one ordinarily tries not to do is to block the view of the sea.

Of course, such a structure might look impressive to those few people who approach Hove from the sea and it might look grand on posters but it is a visual disaster for the thousands of us who live here and have to look at it all the time.

The designers themselves were sheepishly aware of this problem and stressed the "transparency" of their buildings. What a joke!

The whole idea of building along a seafront is to build something beautiful but unobtrusive, that fits in, and that does nor degrade the aesthetic enjoyment of the area for those who live there.

All three proposals are variations on the same misguided vision. If the council were to conduct a plebiscite, it would learn all of them are deeply resented by the vast majority of local residents.

If it has been decided such facilities are useful for Brighton and Hove, then at least they should be sited more appropriately.

-Stephen E Silver, Hove