The events of Brighton and Hove City Council meeting last Thursday show what a farce the so-called "stock option" for council housing in Brighton and Hove has become.

To begin with, tenants were to be given four choices. Except there were really only three because the Government didn't want tenants to choose the sensible one - that their housing stay as council housing.

Next, the option of a private finance initiative was quietly dropped - and no wonder as, up and down the country, the disasters this has created for schools and hospitals have been there for all to see.

So then there were two.

But last week, apparently, the word came from on high that we can't have an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) to run our housing.

Now it looks like there's only one "choice" left, straightforward privatisation of our housing, with the stock transferred to a housing association - more to pay, with fewer rights and no say.

As tenants, our suspicion has been confirmed that there was never supposed to be any choice at all. If the councillors are feeling betrayed by the Government, how do they think the tenants are feeling?

It is time for councillors to right the wrongs and defend Brighton and Hove's council housing.

-Jane Erin, secretary, Brighton and Hove Defend Council Housing, Wickhurst Rise, Portslade