Nick Dodds, chief executive of the Dome, has some gall (Letters, July 4) in accusing me of factual inaccuracy.

The figures before me as I write are obtained from Brighton and Hove City Council's own City News, delivered to every home in the area.

This paper repeatedly quotes the cost of the Dome-Corn Exchange complex as £50 million.

Subsequently, this sum appears to have increased, for Councillor Ken Bodfish, through Adam Trimingham's column, revealed the council had agreed what he described as a loan for a further £500,000 to help complete work on renovating the Dome.

"The loan", he said, "would help gain another £2 million from other sources, i.e. another £2.5 million."

Some days later, I found myself sitting on a bus next to the mayor of the time, Councillor Steer, so I asked him in a clear but possibly ringing tone, in the presence of the entire lower deck, if the actual cost of the complex was £52.5 million, a figure he in effect publicly verified.

Mr Dodds ignores the fact that the organ should have been reinstalled prior to the Dome's much-delayed reopening, a delay inexcusable since I am informed that for protracted periods no work was ongoing in large sections of the complex.

Having implied my facts are wrong, he admits, as I asserted, the Dome is again to close.

Mr Dodds must recognise that in subdividing the Corn Exchange the largest individual space may be reduced.

If, as the man in charge, he is unable to understand this reality, it is little wonder the scheme fails. However, in spite of my slip of the pen in referring to the Pavilion Theatre as the Dome Theatre, he recognises it from my description of "a shoddy black morgue".

Mr Dodds denies a restaurant but omits to mention that council handouts mention cafes and bars in the plural. The distinction between cafes, bars and restaurants can at times be difficult to differentiate.

With respect to Mr Dodds' remark that the Dome complex facilities are "at very little cost to local taxpayers", I note that upon Coun Bodfish's most optimistic criterion of four for one that this "little cost" represents at least £10.5 million from taxpayers' pockets.

As Mr Dodds has failed to identify one error of fact in my letter, I look forward to his public apology and suggest, in future, he lets Coun Bodfish answer his own letters.

-Alfred O Thompsett, Brighton