Residents in the Preston area, without any previous consultation, have just been informed they are to have wheeled bins for refuse disposal. Up to now, the bins have been mainly used in the outer areas of the town where they can be stored in gardens.

Now the bins are to be used in city centre streets where many of the houses have no storage space, which will mean they will have to be left permanently on the pavement.

This has already occurred in the Hampstead Road/Kingsley Road area where these bins now permanently block the footpaths.

Multiple bins have already been allocated to houses with flats so we face the prospect of some streets having hundreds of them permanently lined up in front of houses.

What is supposed to happen on the hilly terraces in Clifton Hill or Hanover is a mystery. The council obviously assumes the bins will always be left neatly parked outside each house - even on a Saturday night.

There is a duty on local authorities to implement policies to enhance and improve conservation areas and yet the council has decided to introduce these bins into the Preston Park Conservation Area.

In the Preston conservation areas, and in many others, additional planning controls have been introduced restricting alterations to the front elevations of properties, even to having to obtain planning permission for changes to front garden walls.

Yet that same council must feel permanently lining up plastic refuse bins in front of houses in conservation areas is a perfectly acceptable policy.

Many parts of Brighton and Hove have conservation-area controls because of the quality of the architecture, which needs to be preserved and enhanced.

The preservation of the views and vistas along the terraced roads is an important aspect of why the areas were originally identified.

Springfield Road in the Preston Park area and Montpelier Street in Clifton Hill show valuable examples of the terraced architecture of the town. However, both roads have houses with flats so in the future, the footpaths will be full of bins, with Springfield Road having to accommodate up to 200.

Permanent lines of plastic bins will irretrievably destroy the character and appearance of many important areas of Brighton and Hove.

This policy must be urgently re-examined before the city becomes a plastic bin nightmare.

-Malcolm Dawes, chairman, Brighton Society,Rugby Road, Brighton