With regard to the letters from Ian Davey, Amy Kennedy and Lynda Hyde (Letters, November 5, 6, 8), I am hesitant to enter the fray about the quality of the Conservative decisionmaking on the planning applications subcommittee on parking issues in Woodingdean, but let's try.

If the planning officer recommended refusal and the chair had to use his casting vote, the convention is that the chair should follow that refusal even if he voted against the officer recommendation in the first indicative vote.

Especially when the applicant is a branch of the council itself.

Why? Because the applicant, if refused, can appeal (quite cheaply), whereas any objector could have to use judicial review (very costly) to challenge the committee's decision.

All is not lost yet though.

Landlord's consent (via the council's estate's department) is needed before building starts.

  • Roy Pennington, ex- chair, Brighton and Hove City Council planning committee, Hendon Street

Councillor Lynda Hyde states that it's democracy in action for people to park their cars on a green space used by children to play on and then for the same people to demand the green space is concreted over. Are these the same people who protested that children were kicking balls against their cars parked on the green?

By the same perverse logic if I get a gang of locals to park in Coun Hyde's front garden, can we then insist her garden is paved over for our own parking needs?

That's not democracy in action in anyone's book.

  • Graham Howson, Franklin Road, Portslade

As petty party political point-scoring goes, the exchange between Green councillor Amy Kennedy and Conservative councillor Lynda Hyde (Argus, November 6 and 8) is one of the better examples of the genre.

Where I have to take issue with Coun Kennedy is when she complains about the city facing "three-anda- half years of Tory misrule on the planning applications subcommittee".

The political balance on each of the committees is worked out proportionally in accordance with the overall balance of the council, and one of the reasons there are too many Tories is because the Greens' strategy in the May elections was all about knocking Labour.

The Greens' main election leaflet called on the voters to "Dump Labour". None of the wards they targeted was Tory-held and they made little attempt to win over Tory voters.

The result of this one-sided strategy is seen most clearly in Goldsmid.

There was no chance of the Greens winning in Goldsmid but their intervention led directly to the election of two Tories.

With a different result in Goldsmid the centre-left parties would have had a clear majority and been able to prevent the formation of a Conservative administration.

Unfortunately, we're now all having to put up with the consequences of the Greens' Labour-bashing campaign.