So, celebrities and stand-up comics ride past the West Pier on their bicycles and weep tears for the "old lady".

Three cheers for the arsonists, I say. Brighton does not need another pastiche of Regency or Victorian times.

It especially does not need the proposed ghastly developments on the seafront as part of its price.

It does not need another esplanade to compete with the tawdry commercialism of the Palace Pier.

Brighton does not need any of these New Labour populist things. In particular, it does not need more theatres or silly entertainment venues or confusion between restaurants and culture.

What it needs is a forward-looking "crystal palace" pier for the 21st Century, designed by one of our best architects, housing a gallery in the style of the Bilbao Guggenheim for the South.

Already, Scotland and Wales, countries with a fraction of the population of the South East, have seceded this year from the British Pavilion of the Venice Art Biennale and struck out on their own.

We need a proper "gallery of the sea" utterly devoted to contemporary art in all its manifestations.

We need a biennale and a venue to compete with with Liverpool, Gateshead, Bilbao and the rest of mainland Europe.

We have an opportunity to break free from disabling nostalgia.

Brighton, for heaven's sake, wake up!

-Peter Seddon, academic programme leader for fine art, University of Brighton