So far as I can tell, Brian Oxley and Craig Turton exist only to slug it out with each other. They do so again (Letters, October 28).

From their differing perspectives, they in fact agree there is a housing crisis.

I find this hard to believe. If there were such a shortage, Brighton and Hove City Council would surely feel honour-bound to take steps to assuage the situation.

And if, in the process, it could balance its books, even turning a considerable profit, it would surely have done so.

But no. When it made moves to take out a compulsory-purchase order on the Hove gasworks site for £7 million, this was not in order to build homes, as stated in the Local Plan. (The possibilities are fascinating - profits could, for example, have funded the King Alfred centre.)

The idea was, instead, to smooth the path for Tesco, which is not short of a bob or two. One gathers there are some on the council who feel more than a twinge of conscience over this bizarre inversion of all logic and humanity.

That the council knows it is in the wrong is borne out by The Argus having never printed a picture of the bog-standard, prefabricated steel-and-glass building which is to go up next to St Andrew's church.

Future generations will scorn the short-sighted people who acquiesced in this, setting aside the fact that aesthetics and the social good are a mutual force.

Without any need to disturb the graveyard and other areas, use of the gasworks site alone could have provided - could yet provide by compulsory purchase - housing not only in keeping with the area but also integral shops, small workshops and public space: A true local economy, not a shareholders' siphoning-off.

This would have won the council plaudits for innovation and social inclusion, rather than horror from both its own conservation department and English Heritage.

-Christopher Hawtree, Westbourne Gardens, Hove