An article in a leading national newspaper on June 1, described as "obscene" the things that had happened to delay Brighton and Hove Albion's new stadium and predicted it would all come out one day.

One hopes so. Just as on hopes the latest delays involving the University of Brighton don't signal yet another such obscenity.

Now the university is claiming that Brighton and Hove city councillors should not be allowed to act as the planning authority for the new stadium.

So, while the city's hardworking councillors are good enough for the hoi polloi and every other organisation in the city, the exalted academics of what used to be called Brighton Polytechnic demand special arrangements.

History doesn't seem to be their specialism. If it was, they would know the land on which their Falmer campus sits was handed over to it, free of charge, by the hard-working taxpayers of Brighton.

The Albion has offered to pay millions of pounds to lease back one small and unlovely corner of this campus but still the University of Brighton prevaricates - continually claiming it wants the stadium to be built at Falmer while simultaneously putting barrier after barrier in its way.

The university's leaders have a choice. They can continue with their now-lonely course of niggling destructiveness or they can show positive support for the community that spawned their organisation.

If they choose the former, the great majority of people in Brighton and Hove and the surrounding areas will never forgive or forget.

-Richard Horton, Portslade