Why is Brighton and Hove Council spending so much money on 'designer' road and pavement surfaces while claiming a popular children's pool costs too much to maintain?

It makes me angry to see gangs of workers digging up perfectly adequate roads to lay expensive blocks, paving slabs and granite cobbles.

The northern entrance to Brunswick Square has been used as a materials depot and construction site for a year and all we have to show for it is a change of texture and colour. This is a novelty which will quite literally wear off. Tyres, shoes, chewing gum, and all sorts of garbage will soon see to that!

Is it this kind of spending which guarantees annual hikes in council tax above the level of inflation? I don't remember being asked to choose between a tarted-up thoroughfare and the saving of a well-loved paddling pool, but councillors had better start asking those kind of questions or they'll be out on their ears!

-Sean Wood, Lower Market Street, Hove