One can only assume Simon Fanshawe derives his notion of the future set-up of Brighton and Hove from reading Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince, about the statue and the swallow which looked down upon such scenes as the one in which "early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the square below in company with the Town Councillors.

"As they passed the column, he looked up at the statue: 'Dear me! how shabby the Happy Prince looks!' he said. 'How shabby indeed!' cried the Town Councillors, who always agreed with the Mayor."

Meanwhile, we can only be thankful our city's statues - such as they are - were not covered in gold foil. Brighton and Hove City Council's finance department would not wait for it to fall from the sky but be out with a ladder under the cloak of darkness.

-James Fitzgerald, New Church Road, Hove