A councillor has been shouted down by outraged colleagues after he claimed the city reached the brink of disaster during the Fatboy Slim party.

The last part of Green Party councillor Keith Taylor's speech at a meeting last night was inaudible through jeers and heckling, mainly from Labour members.

Coun Taylor, who leads the council's Green group, said almost 100 people had crush injuries and there were another 330 casualties during the evening.

Dismissing claims that the beach had been cleaned of glass, he brought in a bucket of fragments that had been collected just before the meeting.

He claimed the council had catered for an event of around 25,000 people when up to ten times that number arrived for last Saturday's event.

Coun Taylor added; "It was a political decision to let the event take place to satisfy the vanity of the Labour administration and to support the City of Culture campaign."

But Lib Dem leader Paul Elgood said Coun Taylor had dragged down the level of debate and the council should be having a time for reflection.

Tory opposition leader Brian Oxley called for a council inquiry into the event.

He said while many people had enjoyed the evening, others had found it frightening.

Coun Oxley added: "We have had fatalities, a transport system that could not cope, emergency services that had to fight to get through to those who needed their support, a road system that was clogged for miles and residents who were not able to go about their own business if they were not themselves attending the concert.

"Words such as frightening and crazy have been used to describe such scenes. Now we understand that some 120 metric tonnes of rubbish has been cleared and much remains out at sea continuing to pose threats to seaborne traffic or to be washed up on the beach at a later date."

Culture councillor Ian Duncan said he wanted to dispel myths that had grown up around the event.

He said there had been no fatalities during the event. The widely reported death of a man from a heart attack did not happen at the party and a visitor who fell from the upper promenade did so three-and-a-half hours afterwards.

Coun Duncan said only 11 ambulance trips were made to hospital, although 80 people made their own way and there were 160 first aid casualties including some minor crushing.

There were 180 toilets on the beach and 260 stewards. Planning for the event had taken place since February.

He said the good weather and enormous promotion had brought in the huge crowds.

Coun Duncan said he did not think an inquiry was necessary but lessons would be learned from what happened.

A full report will go to the policy committee at a meeting on September 18.

Economic development councillor Don Turner told us that at a meeting of the regional assembly in Brighton this week, he was deluged with congratulations for the city from other authorities at being able to stage such a large event.

The wife and teenage daughter of Sussex Chief Constable Ken Jones were caught in crowd congestion following Fatboy Slim's beach party.

They telephoned Mr Jones on his mobile phone from the station where thousands of people were stranded.

Mr Jones said the situation "sounded hairy".

He said the force would be speaking to South Central about train arrangements that night. A critical debriefing in the force was continuing and "there were lots of lessons to be learned."