I recently wrote to Brian Oxley, the leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, expressing my disquiet about the secrecy surrounding the correspondence from the planning officers to Martin Randall regarding the King Alfred redevelopment. His reply does not comment on my concerns about the way approval was given for this scheme but informs me that a statement was recently given by Alan McCarthy, chief executive of the council, in the form of a press release about the request for the publication of emails relating to this matter.

In fact, the statement is interesting in that it stresses that the Conservative members of the council consistently opposed the scheme both at development and approval levels. It is a great pity that those same members have not followed through.

Since the elections last year, which followed the March fiasco that passed for the democratic approval proceedings for the King Alfred proposals, there has been disappointingly little encouragement from Conservative ranks which might indicate that there is some integrity left in local politics.

Now, for some reason, the issue of disclosure has been referred to the information commissioner. It is of the greatest public interest that we, the taxpayers, who will probably in the end have to bail out this gross overdevelopment, know exactly what went on behind the scenes. As I have pointed out to Mr Oxley, there can be no democracy without transparency, and unless this matter is clarified one might be led to the conclusion that something very nasty is being covered up.

  • PV Robertson, Cromwell Road Hove