A year ago today, I was the first person to publicly discuss the exciting possibility of Brighton becoming the European Capital of Culture in 2008, urging the city's bid to go forward.

I am delighted my advice was taken and to read this week that Jackie Lythell will be chairman of the campaign energising the bid during the coming year.

She has all the drive and determination Brighton needs to make its star shine brighter than all the other contenders. And there are many others also reaching for glory - a dozen of them, and possibly more to come.

The list at the moment is Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Brighton and Hove, Bristol and Bath, Canterbury and East Kent, Cardiff, Inverness and the Highlands, Liverpool, London (East), Newcastle and Gateshead, Norwich and Oxford.

But while Belfast, Bradford and Norwich can hardly be regarded as serious competition, vibrant places such as Newcastle and Gateshead, Cardiff and Oxford most certainly are.

However, there remains a crisis at the heart of the city's cultural life that could still wreck Brighton's bid. It must be resolved.

I refer of course to the quarter century of brain-numbing arguments about the refurbishment of the West Pier.

The gloriously restored pier should be right at the heart of the cultural celebrations in 2008.

It was back in September 1975 that the structure became too dangerous to use.

The first two leaders of the campaign to save it, John Lloyd and Bryan Spielman, have since died and the rotting hulk is now facing the 26th winter when storms will almost certainly rip away even more of its fragile superstructure.

The £1 million-worth of work already done below water level cannot prevent that.

Any intelligent person with a love of culture and our heritage must want to see it gloriously restored.

Yet here we are with £14 million of Heritage Lottery money on offer, a developer, St Modwen, and the arguments are raging more fiercely than ever. It beggars belief.

The £14m is on hold because of a spiteful and provocative legal challenge by the Noble organisation, owners of the Brighton Pier - a situation that could drag on into next year.

A more agile and forceful leadership of the West Pier Trust should have been working in sensible collaboration with the Nobles right from the start, making any such action unthinkable.

The contemporary designs for the commercial development at the base of the pier are bright, cheerful and attractive - though not yet right.

St Modwen are flexible and keeping an open mind, which is more than can be said for the gaggle of so-called conservationists, determined to kill off the project.

One of their leaders is credited with saying she would rather have the pier rot into the sea than accept these plans.

It might refresh the brains of these small minded spoilers if they were all to take a walk to the end of the pier and ...............!