A challenge this week I can't let go without a response. Our editorial about the Ombudsman's report into the pedestrianisation of George Street, Hove, was a disgrace, protests Andrew Abaza, from Brighton.

By telling traders to stop whining we had shown a total lack of understanding or empathy with business. That editorial was, he claimed, 'further evidence of the uncritical support of the paper for the council.'

According to him, 'business people do not have the time to complain about anything unless there is a very good reason indeed.'

Let's get this straight. Mr Abaza calls the George Street saga a fiasco but we have favoured the scheme. It has been a good move, there is public parking nearby and good transport links. The street has been transformed for the better.

And let's not forget why we wrote that opinion. The Ombudsman ruled Brighton and Hove Council had behaved properly. It was perfectly reasonable of us to urge traders to move on, stop grumbling and make the scheme a success. We had our two-pennyworth, though, by reminding the council it must arrange better access into the car park behind the west side of the street, and soon.

I am surprised by Mr Abaza's follow-up dose of vitriol in his letter. 'Where are the penetrating analyses and investigative journalism on the council's policies that are essential to inform and generate the debate so necessary in a town like Brighton?'

I will tell you. In the pages of this newspaper. No one covered the child abuse scandal so thoroughly. We challenged the council to back a public inquiry and it did - against the ruling group's wishes. We exposed weaknesses in the switch to cabinet-style local government in our series Behind Closed Doors. We put the council on the spot over rubbish disposal in The Great Waste Debate. We have looked at the real misery that soaring house prices cause to people trying to make homes in Brighton and Hove and what the council is doing about it.

Mr Abaza says the continuing 'scandal' at the King Alfred needs looking at. I remind you it was the Argus, to the council's discomfort, that revealed Labour's gift from the developer. He talks about ugly rumours surrounding the seafront Aquarium Terraces, the Sunblest factory at Woodingdean and rows at the Transport Forum. What rumours? Certainly, the seafront scheme looks good to us.

He lambasts the council for incompetence in failing to get EU money. I thought they did pretty well. Admittedly, one area missed out, as we reported, but blame the suits in Brussels. That wasn't the council's fault. Don't forget the £47 million secured for East Brighton too.

Mr Abaza says the same incompetence seems likely to mean failure to get city status. Does he know something we don't? The battle isn't over yet. And it's the same incompetence that leads to more traffic wardens than police on the streets, he claims.

The council is not responsible for the police. And money from parking permits goes to the police towards the cost of wardens to curb double-parkers and other offenders, clampdowns we know from readers' letters they welcome. Sorry, Mr Abaza, it's you who obviously doesn't understand our business.

In last Saturday's Weekend we moved Mauritius half-way round the world in our list of bargain breaks. Thanks to Jonathan Mitchell, from Uckfield, for reminding us the island is in the Indian Ocean, not the Caribbean. For an atlas, alas . . .

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.