Mr Burnham (Letters May 11) is wrong to dismiss my call for Onyx to consider an alternative site for the materials recovery facilility (MRF) currently proposed for Hollingdean Depot.

An alternative site is the key to the success of the campaign. The facility is essential as part of the drive to increase recycling and reduce reliance on landfill.

Both are important environmental goals. The chosen location is wrong.

Hangleton Bottom - close to the by-pass and away from heavily built up areas is a good alternative.

A recent meeting with Onyx at Downs Infant School revealed why they want the depot - it already has a waste treatment license and CityClean is based there.

So why not relocate CityClean and Onyx to an edge-of-city location, as Hollingdean Depot was 120 years ago when it was first built.

That would free up the depot site for much-needed affordable housing and local businesses of the kind evicted last year to make way for Onyx.

Whether there would also be room at Hangleton Bottom for the massive composting site I understand some Green representatives originally wanted to put at Hollingdean alongside the MRF, I would doubt.

Mr Burnham is wrong to turn this into a party political issue.

By law, councillors on the planning committee must decide the application on its merits, in line with planning law and policies.

If a councillor could be shown to have voted in line with a party policy, that vote could be open to legal challenge.

I hope councillors reject the application because Hollingdean is the wrong place and a better site has been identified already.

-Dave Lepper, Labour and Co-operative MP Brighton Pavilion, Brighton