The worst resort? No, we're the best!

How could they say it was worse than Blackpool – drab, desolate, dated and unspeakably dreary?

Does Brighton really lag behind Skegness, a resort well past its prime (if indeed it ever had one)?

How can anyone prefer Torquay, a resort so impoverished that even the 99p shop had to close through lack of business?

Closer to home, Bognor is a resort I visited at this time two years ago only to find a seafront shop with a notice on it saying “closed for bank holiday”.

Hastings is so lacklustre it resembles a giant benefits office, while Bexhill is full of charity shops and tawdry cafes.

I have been to big cities such as Birmingham and Manchester in the last year and neither displayed deprivation worse than I have seen in St Leonards.

There are few more depressing shopping centres near the seaside than that of Newhaven, while Seaford front looks as if it closed for business in the 1950s and never reopened.

Some justifiable complaints have been made about Brighton.

The city council is right to discourage commuter parking, but not to charge so much for seafront parking that some people will even go to Seaford, where it is free.

For every visitor complaining that Brighton is too trendy, there must be ten others revelling in its quirky, slightly crazy, atmosphere.

The complaint that Brighton is full of bad art seems totally unjustified. The standard seems remarkably high to me in everything from dance to drawing. Someone must like it, or the arts would not be taking up a tenth of the city’s economy.

There are, as the survey says, a lot of clubbers in garish outfits, but to me they are part of the fun, as are the hen parties held here every weekend.

Brighton and Hove is a city where you expect the unexpected. It is the only place in Britain with a royal palace owned by the council.

It is the only resort in Britain to have thousands of elm trees left. For good measure, it also hosts the national lilac collection in Withdean Park and the largest municipal rock garden in Preston Park.

Brighton has Britain’s best Regency seafront architecture and an amazing collection of Victorian churches. It has a Palladian mansion in Stanmer House and a perfect illustration of the upstairs/downstairs divide in Preston Manor.

It has a magnificent new football stadium at Falmer with a Championship team in the Albion and a top table county cricket side in Sussex at Hove.

Brighton has Britain’s only city centre nudist beach and its only purpose-built beach sports centre in Yellowave. The Aquarium, now the Sea Life Centre, was Britain’s biggest when built, and the Metropole was the largest provincial hotel.

Volk’s Railway is the nation’s oldest electric line and the Marina is the largest of its type going.

Brighton has more shops than anywhere in the south-east outside London and is second only to the capital in the number of restaurants it has.

Unlike other resorts that have failed, Brighton keeps reinventing itself. It switched from the bucket and spade trade to conferences and short breaks.

It is a gay city with a large Pride festival each August. It has created a whole new tourist attraction in the North Laine. The Palace Pier has more visitors than anywhere else in the south-east.

Brighton has the best provincial bus service in Britain. It has a better train service than any other resort. Believe it or not, it has more parking spaces than anywhere else in the region.

It has more visitor attractions within 30 miles than any rival resort and is surrounded by the South Downs, which are now a national park.

Brighton has a downside. There is too much poverty and crime. It is an expensive resort. It can be too self-indulgent.

Many major projects simply haven’t happened. The council is politically paralysed and there are too few large employers.

But you have only to look at Brighton, even during a bank holiday with mixed weather like the one just gone, to see how successful it is.

For all its faults, Brighton and Hove is the best rather than the worst resort.