High Cliff Castle, a considerable structure, was superbly restored from a derelict state for a modest £2.5 million.

The cost of the desecration of the Dome and Corn Exchange complex has exceeded the £50 million already squandered by another £500,000 - or is it £2.5 million? How can such a sum be spent on such a botched scheme?

Those portions of the scheme now available to the public are a disaster. With a stage little larger than the one it replaced, the Pavilion Theatre would be more suitable as a chapel of rest than a place of entertainment. Black walls, black curtains, black, black, black. The seats must have been purpose-built for discomfort.

The new Dome foyer is an unsympathetic modernist excrescence, providing little real benefit but at great visual cost. The Corn Exchange's elegant proportions have been destroyed and the reduction in its size has impaired its viability for trade fairs and so on, thus reducing potential income.

The beautiful glass roof of the Dome is covered with heavy black lead which, by altering colour and tonal balance, is not only alien to the original design but, in comparison, is heavy and depressing. With such extra weight, is it coincidental that structural difficulties have been discovered so late in the day?

Surely there is the expertise to discover the structural problems at the point of the originating contracts or is engineering and architectural incompetence to be funded by the public treasure of incompetently drafted contracts that are hidden under the convenient veil of commercial confidentiality? The public has a moral right of access to examine these contracts to see just what has been paid for - sadly, not a legal right. Local and national government must be more open, for democracy depends on it.

It was shocking to hear councillors justifying an extra £500,000 on the basis that it might bring with it another £2 million funding from such bodies as the Lottery, Arts Council and the South East England Development Agency. This is still public money and should be spent responsibly. If it is wasted here, it is unavailable for desirable purposes elsewhere. As it is, the vast cost of this scheme will never be equalled by its income.

All this on top of the bizarre incompetence of the failure to restore the Clock Tower makes one question whether those selecting contractors and drafting contracts are up to the job. If not, I hope their employment will be terminated without yet more golden handshakes at public expense.

Councillor Bodfish said: "The economy of the city was partly based on cultural industries." I wonder how he defines culture? I fear the dry rot is not so much in the roof of the building as in the heads of administrators and councillors.

-Alfred Thompsett, Ridgeside Avenue, Patcham