The idea of linking the Churchill Centre to the seafront is nothing new. When the original concrete precinct Churchill centre was built in the early 1960s, the Grand hotel was outrageously almost demolished to facilitate this very idea. While the carbuncle Brighton Centre would be less of a loss, this project raises a number of questions: 1. How would the new shopping centre look on the sea front? Would they give it a sensitive Regency frontage? Artist’s impressions please.

2. How would the new centre affect Western Road shopping? Would Western Road become a retail ghost road as a result if all the major stores in it then decanted into the Churchill?

3. Would the lost Churchill car park be replaced?

4. Who decided that we needed any more shopping or restaurant facilities in the city? Certainly not the electorate. We already possess more eateries per square mile than any city outside London and a lot of empty retail units.

The reason? The extortionate cost of parking and high business rates. As long as people can drive to Worthing and park for £1 an hour to buy everything they need, Brighton cannot compete, except for its independent shops, which an enlarged Churchill Centre would not benefit.

As for a conference centre at Black Rock, conference facilities are ten a penny nowadays.

What on earth makes Brighton and Hove councillors think that any more are needed? Most small-medium conferences are catered for by hotels.

Most large conferences are now held at out of town racecourses and stadiums or at universities during the holidays. Large pop concerts have gone the same way and arenas see more of these than they do sporting events. Why? Cheap or free parking and ease of access for attendees.

A sea view is not their primary consideration.

On the other hand a restored Brighton Hippodrome would be a genuinely welcome and much-needed USP to the city.

Along with free parking in the evenings to enable the maximum number of people who may not live directly next to a bus or train route to enjoy it.

This is the opportunity that future generations will regret if they do not save it for posterity, as a living thriving arts venue, not as a museum.

In the 1930s Alderman Carden sought (luckily unsuccessfully) to demolish the Brighton Pavilion as an ‘outmoded decadent folly’ and rebuild most of Brighton and Hove in his own preferred style.

To suggest that Brighton will fall behind other cities by not resisting silly ideas and letting developers have their way is laughable. Each city should be individual and do what’s right for it, preferably for the long-term and not the short term (the first ill thought-out Churchill Centre was demolished after less than 30 years – what a criminal waste of money and resources!).

Laura King Brunswick Street East, Hove