Just one of the problems with spending #30million plus on rebuilding the West Pier is that, even in its heyday, it just never had the throughput of visitors the Palace Pier had. This is probably because of its location as much as anything else.

Admittedly I know absolutely nothing about the engineering involved but, if the West Pier were to be extended to the same length as the Palace Pier and then a covered walkway with shops and attractions built to link the two piers, it would provide excellent customer-flow to the benefit of both piers.

A second advantage would be the enclosed sea and beach area would be much safer for bathing, pedalos and so on. The outer perimeter could be fenced off with submarine net to keep speedboats and jet-skis out and pedalos in.

Perhaps there's somebody out there who could give it a thought or even tell me if the idea is completely daft?

-Ken Faulkner, Stanford Avenue, Brighton