Today we launch a campaign to save the French Convalescent Home which has stood for more than a century on the seafront in Brighton.

It is a beautiful building and the home received a glowing report from Brighton and Hove Council's social services in an inspection.

Yet the trustees plan to eject old people from their much-loved home and developers Bovis have already slapped in a planning application for a new building.

And what do they intend to replace this home for old people with? Sheltered housing for the elderly.

It is a callous decision made worse by the way trustees did not even bother to tell residents and staff about it. Instead the first they knew about the plans was reading council notices on nearby lamp posts.

We have all seen from the closure of other homes in Sussex this year, such as Montgomery House in Hove, what happens to the old people. They are shocked and stunned. Sometimes they die from grief.

The building is a landmark in Brighton. If the trustees cannot continue to run it they should pass it over to someone who can.

Instead they're making as much money as possible by passing the home over to a national retirement home company which wants to tear it down and start again.

Perhaps the trustees thought the elderly residents wouldn't protest a lot and that they could close the home without much fuss.

If so they were wrong and they have a real fight on their hands. If they care a jot for the old people and the staff who've been looking after them so well, they must think again.

Name and shame

Today we name the dirty dozen - West Sussex county councillors who think we should not know which sites they are looking at for waste disposal.

Members of a sub committee meet today in private, with neither press nor public present, to discuss this sensitive issue.

They say we shouldn't be told about the list which could include some sites for incineration plants.

But they are our servants and we have a right to know what they're doing with our money on an issue that affects us all.

Councillors are supposed to discuss as much as possible in public, but in West Sussex they have given flimsy reasons for ignoring this rule.

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