There is continuing debate about Brighton and Hove City Council's desire to exclude the public under guise of involving it.

This makes one reflect that the next local elections are not far off.

After weeks of legwork with newspapers, leaflets and poster-wagon for the No vote in the mayoral referendum, I was struck by the interest people showed and a palpable anger at the high-handed way in which they had been regarded in the past few years.

There is disillusionment with the party system and a sense that local matters are, all too often, highjacked by political considerations.

Time and again, people enthused over the notion of neighbourhood forums, a system similar to the one so successful in Sweden, and it is dismaying Councillor Bodfish will not wake up to this.

Also, at the recent full council meeting, public questions were answered evasively, condescendingly and insultingly - to the disgust of a friend who had not previously been there: "I can't believe it, this is awful."

So the campaign for the next local elections begins right now. During those No months, I was asked several times by people on the streets, "Why don't you stand? We don't vote but we'd vote for you - you make it fun, something different."

An interesting consideration. The time has surely come for another element in local government, one which recognises local matters are the civic concern that should have been reflected in neighbourhood forums.

With the ruling body sure to be handicapped during the next 18 months by its ineptitude, and with the number of councillors to be reduced at the next election, there is a great opportunity not only for the Greens to increase their presence in central Brighton but also for another new group to make itself felt.

In this way, with repeated leafleting over the next 18 months, coverage in the Press and other devices, such a force could, at the very least, make a sufficient foothold to halt the follies we have all had to endure for too long.

-Christopher Hawtree, Westbourne Gardens, Hove