Protestors fighting plans for a park-and-ride are inviting people to visit the proposed site to see what would be destroyed if the scheme went ahead.

Members of Patcham Against Insensitive Destructive Development (PAIDD) are holding an open day on the allotments at Horsdean.

It is part of the land which would be developed if Brighton and Hove City Council chose to locate a park-and-ride scheme there to ease congestion in the city. A recreation field and six houses on the Patcham Court Farm site and the Patcham Court allotments would be redeveloped.

Residents, councillors and other opponents of the proposal joined together to set up PAIDD and have launched a web site called timeistight.co.uk Bob Wood, chairman of the Patcham Horticultural Society, is a member of PAIDD, which held a meeting on Saturday to discuss how to move the protest forward.

Mr Wood, of Solway Avenue, Patcham, said: "How will the demolition of houses making six families homeless, the destruction of 35 allotments on the best site in the city, driving the city's most active horticultural society with almost 200 members into possible closure to provide 900 car parking spaces at Patcham Court Farm solve the traffic chaos seen in the city of Sunday, June 19?"

Brighton and Hove City councillor and Patcham resident Geoffrey Theobald is also a member of PAIDD.

PAIDD representatives are meeting two of the city's council officers and Councillor Craig Turton at the proposed site on Thursday.

The protest group has formulated a list of questions to put forward.

Councillor Theobald said: "The problems associated with these suggested sites are insurmountable and to concrete over these areas is an absolute nonsense."

Coun Theobald believes a park-and-ride would not be used by shoppers or visitors but be filled up daily by people who work in the city.

It would be used by people commuting to London. They would drive out of the city and park at Patcham and then car share into London.

The open day at Horsdean allotments is on Sunday, July 17, from 11.30am to 4.30pm.