COMMUNITY campaigners reacted with horror when Hove was renamed “West Brighton” in a leaflet from the council and one of its partners.

The leaflet, produced by Brighton and Hove City Council’s Community Engagement Team and the Trust for Developing Communities, went out to homes in the Goldsmid, Brunswick and Adelaide and Central Hove wards.

Former Hove councillor Christopher Hawtree took to Twitter to accuse the council of pushing through an attempt from 20 years ago to rename the town West Brighton.

He said: “The council is cynically using the cover of the virus again to push its West Brighton fixation, which we saw in 2000 was followed by an attempt to close down the library.”

Mr Hawtree added: “The leaflet says that it is going to everybody in those Hove wards renamed West Brighton.

The Argus:

“It is a public relations disaster.”

Save Hove campaigner Valerie Paynter tweeted photographs of the leaflets and said that the contacts listed had council email addresses.

Community development support worker Cal Chester said: “This was an unfortunate mistake which will understandably upset people.

“The newsletter was produced jointly between the Trust for Developing Communities and Brighton and Hove City Council as it was recognised there was an urgent need for people to be aware of local support available to them.

“In producing something like this quickly, there can be oversights.

“We will ensure that the mistake is corrected in any future publications.”

Community engagement manager Sam Warren said that council community workers and voluntary groups split the city into north, east, west and central areas for their work.

She said: “These categorisations of the city are just for our working practices and not in any way a deprecation of any area of the city whether that be Portslade, Hove or Bevendean.

“The newsletter should not have been labelled in this way.”