The Aquarium Terrace site in Brighton is full of empty shops and is not the showpiece we were promised.

Yet Brighton and Hove City Council, in its brief for the proposed King Alfred development, includes shops when many of the few in the immediate area have been empty for months.

When planning permission was granted for the new Tesco store on the old gasholder site in Church Road, Hove, there was no requirement that affordable housing be built above the store, despite its ideal location for public transport.

The King Alfred development requires at least 160 affordable flats on this prime seafront site. In the council's consultation paper, there is no mention of car parking for residents of the proposed flats.

With some 400 homes, surely at least 300 spaces would be needed plus more for those using the complex?

How a developer can be expected to build 160 or more affordable flats on the same site as he is constructing high-cost flats escapes me.

The taxable value of all the flats must be in the upper bands.

I assume the council tax of those living on a seafront prime site such as this will be paid by subsidy.

I agree with the need for providing affordable housing but the approach must be realistic. The concept of providing this on a prime seafront site such as the King Alfred does not seem logical.

The old gasholder area plus others over which the council has planning control should surely be given priority.

The Aquarium Terrace is a lesson that dreams do not always work out and can cost taxpayers money.

-D Earl, Kingsway, Hove