I read with considerable interest and not a little amazement about the proposed West Hove Forum (The Argus, January 25) with its brief to "bring people together to create a neighbourhood forum that will have a powerful voice to enhance and improve the quality of life in the area".

What a good idea and ideal.

How regrettable, however, that such an enlightened scheme was not in place for those of us living around the Alliance House redevelopment before the decision was taken for it to go ahead, basically unmodified.

I also read the cri de coeur of Lesley-Anne Brennan, a resident of North Laine, regarding the proposed redevelopment of the Brighton station site (Letters, January 17). I felt keenly for her, having been through a similar predicament, and understood only too well her plea for action on the part of local residents. Her recommendations on ways to deal with this problem were commendable but I have to say we, in Hove, recently explored all those avenues with no success.

We had letters printed in The Argus and wrote to individual members of Brighton and Hove City Council's planning committee and to the planning officer. We contacted Ivor Caplin, our MP, and he presented to the council a petition signed by about 1,200 residents expressing their very real concerns as to the project being an overdevelopment in a residential area with restricted road access. We engaged the services of a highly respected and qualified firm of Brighton solicitors to represent us at a professional level but, alas, all to no avail. Apart from a few peripheral items, all our comments and suggestions were ignored or discounted by our city planners. It would seem they consider their opinion to be superior to ours and their theoretical concepts preferable to our realistic and practical approach.

The experience has left me despairing of the validity of rational argument and disillusioned as to the ostensibly democratic processes of local government. And when all is said and done, the planners do not have to live with the consequences of their decisions. We do.

-M Hart, Orchard Gardens, Hove