Last week the leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, Phelim Mac Cafferty, wrote in The Argus that it was, like other councils, seeing an increase in the number of residents who rely on council support, not just to help but to survive.

He continued by saying that 1000 people, on top of the previous year’s total of 6,000, will need support this year and that folk who are "just about managing" will be pushed into food poverty.

There was, he said, a limit to what local councils can do in the face of national destitution and inaction from the government.

If this is the case, and indeed it may well be, why on earth is he colluding with a government he despises to spend £13,000,000 on the construction of a seafront park in Hove?

How many people will be rescued from the destitution he mentioned by giving them access to a new skate park, a new pump track (?), a new croquet lawn and a new roller rink, and at such an enormous cost?

Is the whole idea to provide umpteen new facilities in order to take the minds of many of the city’s residents off of the fact that they haven’t got enough money to buy the amount of daily food that their bodies need?

Did it not occur to anyone,, either in local or national government that, if folk aren’t eating sufficiently, they won’t have the strength to skate on boards, pump(?), roll around on wheels, knock balls through hoops, or, indeed take part in any form of physical activity?

Food should come first, Cllr. Mac Cafferty, recreational activities can come later, if there is any money left over, that is.

Eric Waters

Lancing