We were intrigued by new Hove MP Celia Barlow's claim in her maiden speech in the House of Commons, that Frank Gehry's proposed King Alfred redevelopment "will cost the taxpayer not a single penny" (The Argus, May 18).

Perhaps she would care to explain to us and the rest of her Hove constituents how a brief search through recent years' council committee reports revealed in excess of £250,000 of council tax payers' money has already been allocated by Brighton and Hove City Council for "progressing" the King Alfred scheme.

And this is not to mention the time spent by senior officers on negotiations with the developers, checking that the constantly changing schemes come up to the council's expectations. Their time certainly doesn't come cheap - and remember this process has been going on for roughly four years now.

Then there's the small matter of the 40 per cent "affordable" housing in the development scheme - some 300 out of the 750 flats in the latest offering.

Does Ms Barlow seriously think Mr Gehry and his developers are personally financing these flats out of some altruistic sense of duty to the residents of Brighton and Hove, who are unable to afford to buy property on the open market?

As she should well know, affordable housing such as this is heavily subsidised by the Government - that is, the general taxpayer - who, remember, is apparently not contributing "a single penny" towards this development.

As we understand it, parliamentary protocol dictates that an MP who misleads the House of Commons should come before the house to apologise.

We would suggest Ms Barlow makes this apology the subject of her second speech in the House.

At the same time, for the benefit of her constituents in Hove, she might want to take the opportunity to expand on the views she expressed - which were strangely absent from her public pronouncements prior to May 5 - at the recent presentation by Mr Gehry (The Argus, May 21) that the proposed 60-metre towers "move her to tears" and are "the most beautiful thing she has ever seen".

We would, at the very least, expect her to be straight with people about the true costs of this development, financially and in relation to the unbearable strain on the local infrastructure more than 700 new homes would bring.

-Councillors Averil Older and Jan Young,(Conservative), Brighton and Hove City Council