WE ALL know that last year the Green council, with support from the Conservative group on the council, voted through a 25 year loan of £36 million to the i360 project, against Labour opposition.

That is a legacy to the council and the taxpayer that we have to live with, and hope that the project is a success. However, it is not the only legacy the outgoing Greens are leaving us with.

This week the Green Party has tied the council to a multi-million, five year project that would use a large proportion of the transport funding for the lifetime of the next administration. It would condemn the city centre around the Old Steine to five years of roadworks. It would turn Valley Gardens into an enormous park, at a time when the council is having funding for parks maintenance cut to almost nothing.

It would bring in £14m of government funding, but the council would need to match 25% of that with its own money – money the council does not have. It is a project that has already cost the council £2 million.

All this at a time when the A259 seafront road, seafront arches and Madeira Terrace is literally crumbling onto the beach. All this at a time when more road capacity is needed to service the seafront, new shopping centre, new seafront arena and of course the i360, not less.

Make no mistake, this is a Green vanity project on a scale not seen before, a legacy of unfunded and unsustainable roadworks that will cripple a new administration’s ability to do anything. That they have duped the Conservatives into supporting it – as they did with the i360 – is breathtaking.

A Labour council under my leadership would immediately suspend all work on the Valley Gardens scheme, review whether it can be afforded or completed, and whether any of the funding can be used on what is surely our priority: Brighton and Hove seafront.

Warren Morgan, leader of the Labour and Co-operative group on Brighton and Hove City Council