On June 6, the policy and resources committee held a special meeting to decide Stage C of the process Brighton and Hove City Council (as landowner) is going through to decide what sort of things it is prepared to allow to be built on the site of the King Alfred sports centre in Hove.

Councillors and the public who were present on that occasion were provided with agenda paperwork which included a 15-page report, prepared by council officers, and including the developer's (Karis) request for the increase in the number of flats from 590 to 750.

It was a damning report. From cover to cover, it detailed the extent to which Karis had progressively deviated from or failed to meet the original design brief on which it won the re-development.

It is the most condeming piece of council-generated writing I have ever read. Very sobering stuff.

Within that document it was made plain that housing was to be massively increased and the sports centre would be smaller.

John Barrow, from HOK Sport, who will design the Sports Centre (not Frank Gehry) which somehow seems now to have morphed into a "leisure centre", makes claims which suggest increases in every conceivable area.

This is not what was in the Stage C paperwork provided by officers to the policy and resources committee on June 6.

In this paperwork, it was spelt out that the indoor bowls would be removed entirely. It was also pointed out that the developers were not now going to provide a temporary pool, only £500,000 compensation.

Worst of all, it was pointed out that the competition scheme agreement to provide a 300sqm pool was now being changed and that the existing 270sqm pool would be reduced to 200sqm.

In his speech on the day, Councillor Peltzer Dunn reminded the assembled that the original competition scheme provided a 14,817 sq/metres sports centre but that by March of this year it was 25 per cent smaller - down to 11,126sqm.

HOK's claimed increases are at serious variance to that day's paperwork.

I invite anyone wishing to compare and contrast to ask Mark Wall at the council for a copy of the P & R paperwork from June 6 or to try to access it from the confusing council website if they have the skills of an MI5 agent.

-Valerie Paynter, Hove