Mick Bannister, whose letter on secondary school admissions was entitled "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" (December 14), fails to realise, along with a large number of Brighton and Hove residents, that the system broke a year ago, when Brighton and Hove City Council changed the admissions criteria.

Instead of flexible catchment areas, it became based on how near a school you lived.

As all the secondary schools are located in the suburbs of the city, this has resulted in children from areas in central Brighton and Hove and the inner-city wards of South Portslade, Wish, Westbourne,

Central Hove, Brunswick and Adelaide, Regency, Goldsmid, St Peter's and North Laine, Hanover, Queen's Park and East Brighton unable, with any certainty, to obtain a place at their nearest schools in their normal catchment areas.

Mr Bannister's point that access to schools affects only "a small number of disgruntled residents in Hanover and Queens Park" is incorrect and many parents in inner-city Brighton and Hove have been voicing their complaints to the council and the Press.

Children living in the suburbs of Preston Park, Stanford, Fiveways, Withdean, Westdene, West Hove, Hangleton and Patcham are "privileged". These children now have two or three schools to choose from.

After they have chosen, inner-city children will have to pick-up or be assigned a place at the schools which are left over.

As a resident of Westdene, Mr Bannister's nearest school is probably Patcham High but,compared to inner-city residents, he also lives near enough to Dorothy Stringer and Varndean.

Using the new admissions criteria, he and his neighbours can now choose and obtain a place, with priority over inner-city residents, at either of these schools.

In contrast, inner-city residents, who now have no choice, are offered left-over places at Patcham High and so their children then have to travel more than 5km to school.

This is hardly a fair or equitable admissions system.

-Sue Smith, Brighton