ON MONDAY I went to Brighton seafront for the first time in a long while, having been born there many years ago.

I now live in a village outside Brighton.

I went to see a murmuration of starlings and parked in Asda car park and walked to the pier from there.

What a mess, especially where the old beautiful swimming pool and pub called The Bathing Machine used to be, it is now a derelict site full of travellers and their vehicles and loads of rubbish. It is like a dump, it is horrible.

I now understand that a pool may be built on the beach no more than a few yards from the Bathing Machine site. What was wrong with the one already there?

As I went on along Madeira Drive the rusty metal along the underpath was awful. Has nobody from the council ever looked to see what was happening to it?

Then the view of the coast and the Volk's railway just made things even worse. There was so much missing from what I remember when I was a child living in Brighton.

And as for the eyesore there is nothing more to say and also the death of the pier and what is now missing from the walkway between the piers leaves me very unhappy.

I have some books that have lots of photos taken over many years and shows what a lovely seafront Brighton had in days gone by and how many people enjoyed it.

To finish I must say that the most sad thing to me is the space in the sea that the West Pier should occupy. It is a sad sight. Brighton and Hove councillors should be ashamed of themselves.

John Plowman

Churchmead

Hassocks