As a lifelong Labour voter, I would like to explain why the party has lost my support with the local elections less than a month away.

Tenants were bombarded with one-sided propaganda before the ballot on whether to transfer council housing to a housing association.

Almost £1 million was spent on this biased material.

Crawley Borough Council, like Brighton and Hove City Council, consulted its tenants. The difference was Crawley listened but Brighton and Hove did not.

The schools admissions row was another example of a council not listening. Personally, I'm unaffected by the changes but the lottery is ridiculous.

Perhaps we should allocate other important public services this way? Dial 999 and let the police enter your call into a draw. You may be in imminent danger but, no worries, someone who has had their window smashed won this time so the police will go to them.

It wouldn't have hurt to go back to the drawing board for a few more months to find a better solution.

The huge building proposed for Brighton Marina is hardly a triumph for our planning system or common sense. The boat fire there last year gave us a hint of how an incident could turn into a life-threatening situation. The way in and out is constricted and the new building would only make this problem worse.

Then there was the King Alfred decision. The drama school students who were employed to demonstrate in favour of the project and pack out the meeting to keep out those who opposed it were an affront to local democracy.

The language employed by the developer suggested a contempt for local people borne out by the scale of the building.

I don't like the design but that's a matter of personal taste. The monstrous scale and over-development of the site are the subject of widespread agreement.

Let us hope the application is called in and turned down while there's still a Labour Government.

  • T Johnson, Hangleton Valley Drive, Hove