Kevin Allen asks (Letters, March 27) where were the Greens when the problems of the Open Market canopy came to light?

The answer, as he well knows, is we were working to promote comprehensive regeneration of the site to include a new market as part of a mixed-use development. We even invited him to the launch of our discussion paper A New Open Market in November 1999.

The installation of the canopy was the equivalent of the Labour administration using a sticking plaster to mend a broken bone but, when it came to it, the council couldn't even manage that properly.

The canopy alone was never going to transform the market and bring back the trade it used to enjoy while the ongoing failure of Labour to seriously address the problems of the run-down London Road area continues to alarm and disappoint residents.

The main job of the scrutiny panel that Councillor Allen mentioned was to decide whether the canopy was "fit for purpose".

The panel met about ten times, adding to the £175,000 already spent on the canopy itself. But as anyone who has stood underneath the canopy when it is windy or raining can tell you after ten seconds, it's absolutely useless.

For Coun Allen to now concentrate on how that money was wasted - and the subsequent scrutiny investigation which finished a year ago - is really missing the bigger picture, when we are trying to promote a whole new market development.

Coun Allen's undoubted talents would be better spent in supporting or developing new ideas than in opposing efforts to regenerate the market. As we have said, this project is far bigger than narrow party politics. It is of citywide importance.

So, for the sake of the traders and users of the market, we ask all councillors to stop squabbling and devote more energy making redevelopment actually happen.

The unedifying spectacle of elected community representatives of all other political parties voting down our genuine attempts to enlist support for a project of undoubted citywide importance does a disservice to the people of the city and to Brighton and Hove City Council itself.

-Keith Taylor, Pete West and Rik Child, Green councillors for St Peter's ward