European Capital of Culture? Get real, Councillor Bodfish.

This award is judged upon facilities and achievements in the arts, on things such as good design and fine monuments, not ugly buildings or dangerous bits of rusty iron on the beach that can injure children playing on them, or outsize illuminated traffic cones that litter one of Brighton's streets.

Another criterion is the conservation of fine buildings.

Brighton and Hove City Council's staggering neglect of Stanmer House after receiving and spending a large charitable grant to secure it against the weather and use of public money to fail in restoring the Clock Tower cannot be counted as praiseworthy. Then there is the West Pier.

Libraries are also considered. We have only a stand-in. Museums and art galleries also count. Hove's is closed and Brighton's reopened many months late with less exhibition space than before its refurbishment.

Concert halls are important items. The Dome, which re-opened after many delays, is again to close - no concerts there, then.

The Corn Exchange, at great expense, is reduced in size and its fine proportions destroyed and the Dome Theatre, at incredible cost, is converted into a shoddy black morgue with unbelievably uncomfortable seating.

Such achievements do not equate to restoration but to desecration.

Our own Mr Culture, Coun Bodfish, speaks of a mere £150,000 but the cost of the Dome complex to the public purse is £52.5 million.

True, it has gained restaurants and bars - which occupy space previously used by the library and a little bit of the art gallery and museum - but as there are about 100 such facilities within a half-mile of the complex, their provision at the expense of cultural facilities might not be well regarded by the judges.

Oh, Coun Bodfish, if lack of judgement, failure of provision and an outstanding ability to squander public funds and refusal to explain how such sums could be spent, under cover of commercial confidentiality, were the criteria for this award, you would succeed brilliantly.

Sadly for you, these are not the relevant requirements for the European Capital of Culture award. Your bid is bizarre.

-Alfred O Thompsett, Ridgeside Avenue, Brighton