I WAS puzzled by the report in The Argus saying the Greens, of all people, are planning to concrete over green belt land at Toad’s Hole Valley for housing (The Argus, October 6).

I had read some time ago how the Greens had resisted plans by previous administrations to do a similar thing, so it didn’t make sense to me when I read we could see up to 11,200 new homes in the city.

However, newspaper reports over the weekend revealed the real reason for the Green’s apparent change of mind – the Government is offering £1 billion in grants to councils that are willing to override green belt regulations for housing, with no restrictions on how they can spend the money.

With the governor of the Bank of England quoted as saying this is the worst recession ever, we could always hope Brighton and Hove City Council might use the money to reduce council tax and other burdens on families and businesses.

But that is unlikely. Is it more probable the cash will pay for Green “aspirations” set out in its manifesto, such as increasing pay for council workers?

Andrew Abaza, Eaton Place, Brighton

WHILE the Green Party proposes to build 750 homes at Toad’s Hole Valley, I am curious about where the remaining 10,450 will be built?

I also hope the council will publish a blueprint of any plans before a decision is made.

The Green Party, of all parties, should know that the ideology of “growth” needs to be challenged if our and other species are to survive on a planet with only finite resources.

O Tate, Ditchling Rise, Brighton

BEFORE the Green Party starts building work at Toad’s Hole Valley and on the urban fringe, why doesn’t it look at brownfield sites, empty office blocks and houses unused for years in the city?

Leave our green belt alone.

J James, Davey Drive, Brighton

Opposition politicians are absolutely right to accuse the Greens, who run Brighton and Hove City Council, of gross hypocrisy by proposing the building of 750 houses at Toad’s Hole Valley as part of their new city plan (The Argus, October 10).

This valley is part of the city’s green urban fringe.

At a council meeting in December 2009, Councillor Pete West, currently the cabinet member for environment and sustainability, promised the Greens would “remove the threat of housing development in the urban fringe”, that the “biologically important” urban fringe should not be “downgraded, discarded and forgotten” and that it should not be “available to meet our housing targets, even as a last resort”. He said it would be a “mark of our civilization” not to develop the urban fringe.

Rather than build on our countryside areas, we believe a comparable total number of new homes, as proposed for the city plan, can be built by using a site such as Shoreham Harbour, part of which falls within the city boundary and where between 400 and 2,000 new houses could be built.

The Greens do not seem to have included this site in their options for consideration.

It is right to point out that under the new planning proposals from the Tory and Liberal Democrat Government, Toad’s Hole Valley is at increased risk of development, but for the Greens to be rushing ahead and offering up the valley on a plate to developers before these plans have even gone through Parliament really takes the biscuit.

Councillor Gill Mitchell, Leader of the Labour and Cooperative Group

JUST a couple of months ago, Green council leader Bill Randall stood up in front of hundreds of business leaders in the city and told them he was in favour of creating park and ride sites on brownfield sites outside the city centre.

Now the Green Party has scrapped any plans to take car congestion and pollution out of the city centre, and instead is going to spend £4 million on refurbishing city centre car parks, presumably so it can increase charges and revenue from car owners driving into town.

Despite pledging to “reduce the car domination of Brighton and Hove proposed by the Tories for the next decade” in their manifesto, this seems very similar to plans set out by the Conservatives before they were kicked out in May.

It does seem hard to know where the Greens stand on anything now they are in power.

Pete Gillman, Hythe Road, Brighton