There have been a number of letters recently about the Preston Barracks site.

I would like to give readers an outline of how the consultation process will work if the site is acquired by Brighton and Hove City Council on behalf of the community.

The site is owned by the Ministry of Defence, which wishes to sell it. The ministry has to offer the council first refusal and we are negotiating the terms for the council to buy it. This is a difficult negotiation and still has some way to go.

We have every intention of achieving a deal that enables the site to be improved in partnership with the local community.

This would allow new employment uses, housing and facilities for residents. If there is a straightforward private sector development, it is unlikely to directly meet the interests of local people.

Assuming the council can acquire the site, there are a number of interested parties to be involved in discussion about the future.

These include local people, the University of Brighton, New Deal for the Community, prospective employers and investors and the wider city community.

Some of these interested groups will have overlapping and complementary ambitions but, inevitably, there will be some competition for the finite area of land available.

The mechanism for prioritising between possible uses began with the Local Plan process, which started last year. If the council buys the site, a further level of consultation will be carried out among all the interested groups, then a planning brief for the site will be adopted.

This second phase of consultation has not yet begun, although New Deal for the Community has recently conducted a consultation exercise of its own among stakeholders intended to ensure that community priorities are reflected in any redevelopment proposals for the site.

If there is to be any public funding, it will have to be justified in terms of real jobs and homes created at the barracks.

In the meantime, we must all hope the ministry will respond to the legitimate wishes of the city's residents to see the site used to meet real local needs.

-Sarah Tanburn, Director of Culture and Regeneration, Brighton and Hove City Council