I was interested in your front-page report and page eight comment on the Environment Agency's dire warnings of freak storms and tidal surges along the Sussex Coast (The Argus, January 5).

These warnings were connected with a planning application for a house on Shoreham Beach.

Therefore, what folly it would surely be to permit the proposed development on the King Alfred site.

I strongly object to the scheme, not only on environmental, social and economic grounds, but also on the geo-physical aspects of the site, which is low-lying and exposed.

In the Thirties, I played football in a flooded gravel pit where the leisure centre is now.

A 1757 map I have shows the River Adur, forced eastward by shingle drift, had its mouth just west of the site. There is good reason to believe that previously, the river extended even further east, so the site may have been on the actual riverbed.

In my objections, I have, therefore, questioned the stability of the site. I have also warned of the effect near hurricane-force winds, as in 1987, could have on the high-rise development.

And not least is the risk and apparent inevitability of climate change and rising sea levels.

-Ken Fines, Hove