QUESTIONS are rightly raised about the funding case for the i360 in Monday's Argus ("Brighton i360 business case revealed after council blunder").

Those of us in the Labour group of councillors at the time the decision was made to guarantee the loan have, sadly, been vindicated.

We thought the council's financial exposure was too great, and the risk with such a venture too significant, for us to support it. We voted against, believing the private sector should bear the lion's share of the risk.

Green Party councillors, backed by Conservative councillors, pushed the funding deal through at a special policy and resources committee on March 6, 2014. The press release celebrating the fact is still live on the local Green Party website. With local elections coming up in May, voters might wish to remember which parties supported the flawed business case that leaves the council where it is today.

Hindsight of course is a wonderful thing, and in this case I genuinely wish, having been council leader when it opened, that things had gone differently for the i360.

I had tremendous respect for the designers Julia Barfield and the late David Marks, who had the brilliant success of the London Eye behind them and were unfailingly friendly despite our opposition to the funding.

What's more frustrating to me is that the Greens later went on to delay and obstruct other seafront projects that would have delivered much needed investment, jobs and regeneration, from a new leisure centre in Hove to the restoration of Kemp Town's Madeira Terrace and a new concert and conference venue to succeed the Brighton Centre.

I still hope, as an ordinary council tax payer at a time when the council faces enormous pressures and cuts to its funding due to the current Conservative government, that the i360 will find a way to succeed, and wish the team there well. None of us benefit from its failure.

Warren Morgan

Labour Group leader, Brighton and Hove City Council 2013-18