ACCORDING to Steve Bell, writing in his Argus Tory Talk column, a climate citizens' assembly, which is a focus group exercise involving 50 random residents, was held in Brighton recently, and that the City's Green and Labour groups propose to implement its key proposal of a car-free city.

One of the definitions of the word random, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is "chance, rather than, according to a plan", for example, "The survey was carried out among a random sample of voters".

That being the case, should Brighton and Hove City Council really be placing so much reliance on the opinions of such a small number of individuals who, for all anyone knows, could well not include one single person who does not support the political views of either of these parties?

As things now stand, Brighton could well finish up with its city centre roads devoid of vehicles just because an anonymous few handfuls of local residents, seemingly plucked out of the blue, thought it would be a good idea.

Coming up next, randomly chosen councillors?

Eric Waters

Lancing