A FORMER Brighton and Hove City councillor measured the progress of the city by the number of cranes he could see on building sites.

If that councillor was still around now, he may be in for a pleasant surprise with several multi-million pound development projects set to push the proliferation of cranes sky high.

It is a positive sign of where we are in the confidence of the local economy and the national economy more generally if developers are ready to do what they are named for.

Brighton and Hove has had its fair share of development sagas over the years and plenty of sites ripe for renovation.

Yes, they have to be the right kind of developments, sensitive to the city and to neighbours and hopefully control will remain with our local councillors to feel they can say no if a project is not right.

But we have too many of these city centre ghost lands just gathering cobwebs.

It’s time we started to see some more cranes.