Brighton and Hove City Council "de-recognised" our residents' association not because, as it says, we (unanimously) elected a non-resident leaseholder as chair.

It was because he was prepared to fight the council to have modern slums such as Theobald House put right.

To take just one example of council mismanagement: One of our tenants, a 93-year-old man, has suffered damp and leaks for years because the repointing of the block, which was meant to happen in 1992, never took place.

The council still paid the contractors (two ex-council officers) for it, though, out of tenants' rents and leaseholders' works bills.

Apparently, they hadn't bothered to check whether the work had been done or not.

But I must give the council's housing department its due: After realising something was wrong - eight years later - they called in another firm of contractors to do the repointing which the first firm should have done. And paid them, too.

That's right - they didn't do it either.

-Ian Hills, Secretary, Theobald House Residents' Association, Theobald House, Blackman St, Brighton