I suggest Councillor Jackie Lythell contact Brighton and Hove Council's leisure department if she is worried about the response to plans to close the seafront paddling pool (Opinion, September 8).

I'm sure the reason some people have been negative about the plans is because nobody knows what's going on.

Last Monday Bank Holiday, my wife and I took our two young children for a picnic at the pool. As frequent users of the amenity we were disappointed to find it closed. We had our picnic anyway. During the next 70 minutes, 46 children and their parents arrived only to turn away, similarly disappointed (I know because I counted).

Would it really have been so difficult for the pool managers to have kept the pool open one more day until the children returned to school? And where was a sign explaining what had happened?

As if this were not disappointing enough, we were then told the pool was closing for good. I rang Brighton and Hove Council leisure department, which put me through to the seafront office, where the manager told me categorically he was not aware of plans to close the pool and suggested I call the Prince Regent swimming complex, which is responsible for managing the paddling pool.

The manageress at the Prince Regent blamed an unidentifiable technical fault for Monday's closure and said the pool was definitely not closing this year. She wouldn't comment when I asked her if it would still be open next summer.

Yet Jackie Lythell says plans to close the pool were announced two months ago. If so, why weren't the seafront office, pool managers, local beach hut owners, whose property fronts the pool, stall holders and public told about it?

While on the subject of lack of information, can she please explain what is going to happen to the site and why it makes sense for the council to move the pool to a new site rather than repair it? There can, as always, be only one reason: Money.

-Brian Oliver, Walpole Road, Kemp Town