David Lepper MP accuses Green councillors of ignorance of the needs of a modern football club when he responds to our suggestion that Brighton and Hove Albion should abandon its plans for a stadium at Falmer in favour of building a new stadium at Withdean.

As a member of the Brighton and Hove Council Task Group on the Falmer proposal, I am certainly not ignorant of the facts of this matter. For nearly a year the club's has repeatedly failed to bring forward a planning application and viable business case for its dream.

The reason, as the council's appointed consultant Vantage Point found, is the scheme is far too ambitious and the money just isn't there.

This was billed as a community stadium by Labour when cashing in on the distress of supporters and sympathisers through their referendum. They have compounded the scandal by so far failing to give this project the community leadership it so clearly needs and deserves. Mr Lepper should recognise this for what it is - a put up job - and direct his criticism at the role of the council and club, not those prepared to question what is going on.

It is now obvious a stadium at Falmer is neither appropriate nor likely to happen. The land at Falmer may be regarded as a muddy field but there's no escaping its sensitivity now the South Downs is to be made a national park. Any plan to build a stadium there will inevitably end up at a public inquiry, with the likelihood of failure leaving only huge legal bills in exchange for years of hope.

By contrast, at Withdean, where the Albion already has a good relationship with its neighbours and a successful green transport scheme, football would remain within the community, where it belongs.

-Councillor Pete West, Convenor, Green Party Group, Brighton and Hove Council