PAUL Price (Argus July 30) was absolutely spot on with his review of how far Brighton has descended in terms of becoming a Dirty Old Town.

I have called Brighton and Hove home since my birth in the late 1940s and over that time have witnessed its sad decline to what it is today.

Yesterday my wife and I went with friends to Hastings.

>> SEE ALSO: Man's video message to every Brighton and Hove councillor

It was the first time we had been there for seven or eight years and it was a first ever visit for one of our friends, who we had warned to expect a dirty old place, well past its best and certainly not up to even Brighton’s low standard.

How wrong we were.

Hastings has been given a fresh lease of life it seems.

Most of the buildings appeared freshly painted – without graffiti – and along the entire length of the seafront road we saw just one sleeping bundle left unattended.

Whereas in Brighton we see increasing levels of litter, street begging, drunken/drugged groups of people causing a nuisance, tents pitched everywhere, individuals lying comatose on the pavement and of the appallingly unartistic graffiti that not only adorns the city but seems to be ever more rapidly spreading – we saw none of this in Hastings.

We did see well-tended gardens with properly cut grass and well maintained flower beds (both as they used to be in Brighton), in a clean town locals can be proud of.

I am not suggesting Hastings is without problems of its own, but it presents itself now as a clean and inviting place to visit.

Many in Brighton, on the other hand, feel afraid to set foot in the centre due to the state of things.

My wife recently witnessed a drunken female drop her trousers and underwear to urinate on the pavement outside the old Hanningtons in North Street.

This happened on a working day, at 5pm, in full view of everyone.

Why did the woman think she could get away with it?

Because she knew our “authorities” are powerless to do anything, even if they wanted to – which I personally think they do not.

Much of the litter and graffiti seems to be concentrated in the narrower, half-hidden roads and alleyways around the town.

If I can work this out so easily and quickly, why can’t our “wonderful boys in blue”?

If they could, perhaps they could begin patrolling and doing a part of the job we pay them to do.

But wait!

We have CCTV cameras all over the place, don’t we?

Well, sorry to disappoint but they are only of any use if you’re a car driver who strays inadvertently into a badly signed bus lane.

It’s a similar story with our wonderful litter wardens.

They are there ready and waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting foreign language student who drops a cigarette end outside his college, but where are they when quite literally tons of litter is being dropped during some street festivals or along the beaches?

Not so full of themselves then, are they?

Couple all this with Brighton’s extortionate, 365 days-a-year parking fees and there is little wonder why most people I used to work with from Surrey and Kent vowed never to visit again.

Why would anyone from out of town want to?

Brighton, in particular, has nothing going for it, in spite of what some councillors might wish to think, or convince themselves.

Unless someone has the courage to stand up to the law-breaking perpetrators soon, this spiral of decline will become ever faster towards eventual oblivion for Brighton and Hove as a seaside attraction.

Alan Phillips,

Whittingehame Gardens, Brighton