At the end of my street there is a large pile of squashed cardboard packets flanked by two stacks of heat-distorted milk crates.

Urban squalor? Street cleaners' strike? No, this will be the view if I lived opposite the proposed King Alfred complex in Hove.

Fortunately I do not.

I'm not a die-hard traditionalist. I like the new Education Centre at the Eden Project, the "Pineapple" building in London and the Barclays Bank HQ with the brightly coloured services on the outside.

I like some of Frank Gehry's earlier designs, but this...

Of course we need new sports facilities and housing. The council should certainly support redevelopment but not something which will make the majority of the voters wince.

Surely a more conventional building, still with eye-catching styling, could be built more cheaply and quickly. When costs spiral, as they inevitably seem to - take the

Spinnaker Tower and the Scottish Parliament - this unconventional design will surely spiral tighter and steeper.

Please think again.

-Nigel Rickard, Brighton