Given the huge transport pressures in Brighton and Hove and the Government's apparent push for action on climate change - with carbon dioxide emissions from private transport growing year on year, when are we going to see the council taking cycling seriously?

All too often, it pays lip service to one of the quickest, healthiest and cheapest ways of getting around.

Ten years after the first Lewes Road cycle lanes were built, we still do not have proper bike facilties linking the universities to the seafront, while many of the newer cycle facilties are poorly designed and even dangerous in some places.

The council's attitude to cycling is summed up by the notice at the front of King's House, the council's headquarters.

Cyclists visiting the building naturally arrive at the front, only to be told to go round the back to park, while car parking abounds.

The spurned cyclist duly trundles off round the back only to find bikes strewn everywhere, with little or no cycle parking available.

How much effort would it take to put some cycle parking in front of the building to make a positive statement that cyclists are welcome? It would also set a good example to everyone else in the city.

The council also needs to take a firmer line on planning. Outside Tesco and Waitrose in Western Road, an intensification of use of these areas has been allowed without getting secure cycle parking immediately outside the store entrances.

As a result, cycles are attached to trees or leant against windows and are generally discouraged by the lack of facilities.

reduce air pollution there.

If the council had a cycle parking strategy it would be obvious where it was needed and the public would not have to keep wasting their time telling the council the glaringly obvious.

Until the council can inspire confidence that, at the other end of people's journey there will be somewhere safe to leave their bikes, cycling will always be undermined.

-Chris Todd, Friends of the Earth (Brighton and Hove and Mid-Sussex), Hollingdean Terrace, Brighton