The information one can get by examining a Land Registry title is quite severely limited.

The Land Registry (in Brighton and Hove, the local office is at Portsmouth) can only supply information about the current situation concerning the ownership of land and is unable, in most cases, to lead back into history.

But it cannot help at all when land is not registered.

This is the case with the land on which the King Alfred leisure centre stands and all the land westwards to Hove Lagoon.

We can assume it is owned by the city corporation, which of course holds it in trust for the people of the city.

In order to allay fears and worries concerning the future of the King Alfred site, I invite Brighton and Hove City Council to open all its records of land acquisition south of Kingsway along the length of the Western Esplanade.

If it does not respond positively to this, I can draw only one conclusion.

But, please, would the council not trot out the old one about the town hall fire destroying all the records?

-Jerry Laurie, Hove