Whatever the merits or otherwise of congestion-charging, it would be rank hypocrisy for Brighton and Hove City Council to introduce it, for it is hell-bent upon increasing traffic.

Such schemes as a 320-space car-park at the Hove gasworks, a similar number at Brighton station, 400 spaces at the King Alfred, more at Shoreham Harbour and 4,000 over the countryside at Shoreham Airport.

All this, with scant attempt at recycling, suggests that meetings of Joyce Edmond-Smith's sustainability commission should be held at Komedia.

The council inhabits a fantasy world in which, rather than provide basic services competently, it is forever trusting to wild schemes to bring such provision in their wake. Yet again (Letters, January 23), we find Simon Fanshawe trotting out his references to solve-all "brave" and "landmark" architecture when, in fact, the reality is "foolhardy".

As I look at the plans for an off-the-peg steel-and-glass supermarket to be plonked upon a large site in Hove, I see no reason to trust Mr Fanshawe's judgement.

It would have been so easy to create something akin to the North Laine that was predicated upon much-needed housing and included, for example, a cinema similar to the Duke of York's.

As one dreary scheme after another goes ahead in the city, schemes in which there is no place for real, examined life, it is to exacerbate a palpable sense of urban alienation, of meaningless existence.

Time and again, I hear comments along the lines of: "There's no point in getting involved with the local community. Why bother? The council just does what it wants anyway - there's no point even in voting."

Seemingly intent, in this way, of driving a divide between rich and poor, the council creates a situation in which people feel they are not valued and have to look out for themselves, with the result that it becomes all the harder to attract them to such work as nursing and teaching.

These people have taken Councillor Simon Battle at his word when he declared that if people "do not like it, they can always move."

A community is something so important there can be no more heart-rending cry than "Why bother?" And I ask myself: Why bother?

-Christopher Hawtree, Westbourne Gardens, Hove