Health chiefs meet later this month to decide on where to place a new centre for treating women with breast cancer.

Planning applications have been lodged both for a site in Brighton and in Mid Sussex at Haywards Heath.

When members of the Brighton and Mid Sussex Primary Care Trusts look at the facts, they must come to the conclusion that there is an overwhelming case to be made for Brighton.

Just consider the facts. The Nigel Porter breast unit at the Royal Sussex County Hospital does a fantastic job and its only problem is being too small.

Everyone accepts there has to be a new centre in a better building.

The unit has worked well in Brighton over the years. There's an ideal site for it just a few yards away at Rosaz House. This is a building close to the main hospital. It is easy to reach for consultants and other staff.

If a decision is made to place the unit at Haywards Heath, women will still have to go to Brighton for treatment such as radiotherapy.

Most of the women who will use the service will be based on the coast. The population of Brighton and Hove is more than 250,000. No part of Mid Sussex has anything like that number of people.

At one time it seemed that building at Haywards Heath would be much cheaper but the latest figures show it will be almost the same, at about £13 million.

Then there's transport. It's a 17-mile journey by road between the centre of Brighton and Haywards Heath. The roads are often congested.

Far more people in Brighton and Hove do not own or have access to cars than in the more affluent area of Mid Sussex.

The journey by bus and train to the Haywards Heath site from Brighton and Hove is long, slow, awkward and expensive involving at best several changes.

By comparison, the site in Brighton is well served by buses with one passing by about every two minutes during the daytime.

Brighton and Hove has pockets of deprivation where people are most likely to suffer from cancer. Yet these same people are those who would have to make the difficult journey to Mid Sussex.

Those making this decision cannot ignore public opinion. More than 30,000 people signed The Argus petition in 11 days.

Members of these trusts must vote for common sense. Thousands of people in many parts of Sussex, not just Brighton and Hove, will never forgive them if they do not.