Further to the correspondence about Brighton and Hove City Council's grant funding for the Gay Pride event in Preston Park, I want to say I fully endorse the decision to make an award.

However, the reasons Councillor Sue John gives seem to be more to do with the largesse of the event and the publicity attached than to breaking down prejudice, which is really what gives legitimacy to this funding.

Coun John would do well to reflect on some of the adverse reaction that this grant has occasioned, as in part it embodies a more general critical perception of the council. The perception is that the council supports high profile initiatives at the expense of less visible activities, which nevertheless solidly improve the lives of the more disadvantaged in the local population.

She argues for the council's support because Pride is a "massive national event improving the city's profile". While recognising the importance of attracting business and money to the area, there must be seen to be a balance in council priorities. Many desperately needed causes are getting neglected by the council because they do not and cannot raise the council's profile in this way, despite having a real and lasting impact on the lives of local people.

My colleagues and I have been running a small children's charity, Fun in Action for Children, in Preston Park for the last four years. We have a long waiting list of young people referred to us for help from their teachers, social workers and mental health professionals. We do not have enough funds to respond to many of these requests, which means a lot of very needy children simply won't get help. We know that what we offer - a long-term adult befriender for each child - can have a profoundly positive and enduring effect. However, despite the fact that a year's befriending costs less than the cost of a week in local authority care for a child, our request for funding was turned down by the local authority as not being "cost effective".

I am not saying that our charity is more deserving than the Pride event. What I am suggesting is that unspectacular community work tends to be overlooked by a council constantly seeking to promote a "place to be" image of the city. A friend of mine once remarked that Brighton and Hove is coming to resemble a cup of cappuccino with a high proportion of froth and not much coffee. Like many charities, our work painstakingly builds fabrics of support for local people and the danger is that the activities of organisations like ours gets overlooked in the appearance-driven formulae of this council. If our befrienders changed children every three months, our increased statistics would no doubt impress the council but we would be just tinkering on the surface and in the long term making no real difference.

-Anne McLaren, Brighton