Following the departure of the development control manager for Brighton and Hove City Council and the imminent departure of the area manager for Hove, which the chair of the Regency Society draws sad attention to (Letters, May 2), Hove now finds itself in a vulnerable position planning-wise.

Half of the planning committee in the new administration are either new to planning or inexperienced, brand new councillors.

I would have wished for them a period of stability and the benefit of advice from these deeply knowledgeable and enormously experienced planning officers.

They have a lot to learn before they can be confident in their decision-taking regarding planning applications - and the development control manager, before the new planning committee has even had its first meeting, has now gone.

The sense of trauma over the handling of the King Alfred planning application cannot be underestimated.

The resulting destabilisation of the planning department will be music to the ears of every developer out there looking for a weak moment in which to strike.

As I write, application BH2007/ 01160 - to demolish a large family house on the corner of the gracious and prestigious Princes Crescent and Kingsway in Hove - has been registered. The plan is to replace it with the usual block of flats.

The former Sackville Hotel site in Kingsway is expected to provide another new application soon.

Then there is Medina House in King's Esplanade, Texaco, and whatever other bit of madness is in the pipeline.

Will the future of major developments in Hove now be put in the hands of inexperienced planning officers and inexperienced councillors on the planning committee?

Whose clever planning was that?

What is going to be done to put things right - and who will be first to fall on their sword?

Valerie Paynter
saveHOVE, PO Box 521,
Hove