I read with enormous interest your article in which Colin Bennet accuses Brighton and Hove City Council of wasting taxpayers' money on a comedian for International Day of Disabled People (The Argus, March 14).

I have been disabled from birth and I am wheelchair bound. I run a successful business in Bournemouth and have a wife and two children. I can cope with my disability because I have always had it. My family has never seen me any different. All I want is to fit into society and for society to accept me for being in a wheelchair.

This seems to work perfectly in Bournemouth but not in Brighton and Hove. My mother-in-law has a house on Hove seafront which we have adapted for wheelchair access.

This is for me and my brother-in-law, who is in a wheelchair as a result of a road traffic accident.

Brighton and Hove City Council is paying to celebrate disability when the majority of disabled people just want to get on with their lives. It gave £5,000 to an organisation to organise the event which I am sure the majority of disabled people did not want. It also paid £935 for the comedian to travel to Brighton and stay two nights in a hotel.

I travel all over Britain and have always found DisabledGo has the best information for disabled travellers.

Now I read the council has withdrawn its funding.

May I suggest that Brighton and Hove City Council puts its money into its local tourist information centre, Citizens Advice Bureau and DisabledGo instead of paying for disabled entertainment. These are the three places in any city or town where, as a disabled person, you get the information you need.

Disabled people do not want to be special. We do not want a day named after us. We just want to live in society without people telling us what is best for us.

  • Oliver James, St Michael's Road Bournemouth