Here are a few ideas offered to whoever has control of Brighton and Hove City Council after the election: The city is at its busiest at weekends and public holidays.

This is when many council services are most needed. So all council workers, including town hall officials, should expect to be available for work at these times, with other time off in lieu, just as happens in shops, bars and restaurants.

All officials should be asked to reduce by 50 per cent the time they spend in meetings where three or more are gathered and to reduce by 50 per cent the number of memos they write.

Time thus saved should be used for person-to-person management and getting out and about the streets (yes, the streets) and facilities for which they are responsible.

There should be a citywide referendum asking if residents want to see high-rise flats built on seafront sites.

There should be a moratorium on the employment of outside "consultants".

Alternatively, a very small scrutiny panel should approve all consultancies, agreeing if the money could not be better spent on employing extra council staff or tapping into the expertise of local residents and organisations.

If it is impossible for budgetary reasons to scrap all the existing traffic management schemes, then as a matter of urgency a simple citywide parking permit should be introduced for traders and others whose work involves them in a great deal of movement and visiting around the city.

Those currently making dubious but understandable use of disabled Blue Badges to achieve city-wide mobility should be offered an amnesty in exchange for buying a stylish and very expensive new "platinum permit".

I am sure the city's prestige car owners would be delighted at such a chance to rejoin the straight and narrow.

I hope this little list may encourage others to produce their own.

So, now we know. According to New Labour's election leaflet for Westbourne ward, "The seafront between Hove Street and Boundary Road is... a tattered jumble of facilities quite incapable of attracting tourists and of little use to the people of Hove except as a place to walk the dog."

The fact is, a lot of us - who are not tourists but just happen to live in Brighton and Hove - like it that way.

It's a place to enjoy the sea and the beach as nature intended. It's a place to enjoy a game of minigolf, play tennis or bowls, jog along the seafront, learn to sail or windsurf or paddle with the kids at Hove Lagoon.

You can watch the world go by from a beach hut or even take a walk - with or without a dog.

Such uses seem to be alien to these wannabe councillors who view local government as a branch of the property development business.

This seems to be a growing tendency in our city - from the Guggen-Hove planned for the King Alfred, Sainsbury's at the station and the seafront-blocking development of the new West Pier to the cliff-topping plans for the Marina.

These grandiose plans show that elected members have forgotten that their role is to serve the people who put them there - people who will still be here after the councillors, and the tourists, have gone.

They should learn to show some respect.

-Stephen Young, Hove