I am appalled by the events of Saturday night. Everyone I know has spoken of an unpleasant encounter during the evening. The atmosphere in the crowd was menacing.

Two friends on their way to a party had people trying to grab their beers off of them. Another, after accidentally falling into a man, was grabbed by the throat and seriously threatened.

I walked home from a restaurant in East Street, wearing flip-flops, and had to tip-toe my way through piles of broken glass and pathways flowing with urine. The next morning the smell was disgusting. The beach is a hazardous area.

How can Brighton and Hove City Council justify this event as a success? Does it want more people to be injured from the broken glass embedded in the shingle?

The ineffectual signs asking people not to take glass on to the beach are pathetic.

The council is blinded by the need for cultural status. This event had nothing to do with culture and everything to do with creating a health hazard.

Please, please do not let this environmental disaster happen again.

-Hilary Glentworth, Geography Teacher, Brighton (lived here all my life)