How sad it was to read the comments of Tony Mernagh of the Brighton City Centre Business Forum (Letters, October 20).

He said Brighton and Sussex RSPCA is keen to build a new "super centre" if Brighton and Hove City Council will gift us Patcham Court Farm.

The council is not legally allowed to "give away" public land. It can, however, offer favourable leases and has recently done so, leasing land to us which adjoins the existing animal shelter. We built a new unit on it, to care for abused dogs, which opened last month. (It cost a quarter-of-a-million pounds, all raised by local people.)

In the past 15 years, we have completely rebuilt the animal accommodation and now have the most modern cattery in the South.

Yes, we have money in the bank but it is ring-fenced to rebuild our staff, reception and office facilities, which are currently part of an old, private house which is inadequate for the 13,000 people who pass through our doors every year.

However, with the park-and-ride planning blight hanging over us, we can't proceed.

Mernagh states exercising the dogs in our care on the playing field is a health hazard.

The chairman of the football-users group said, at a public meeting, it was the cleanest sports ground in Brighton - a tribute to the care of our volunteer dog walkers.

Most importantly, Mernagh suggests there is an alternative to the field where we exercise our dogs.

In front of us is the A23, to the south, the footings of the bridge. The field he cites is behind us, on the other side of Braypool Lane, behind a thick coppice and a steep slope. It might provide exercise for mountain goats but not dog walkers.

You certainly could not run our dog-training classes or hold our annual open day on it. (If we couldn't hold the open day, we would lose about £20,000 a year.)

And yes we do need to supervise a field of dog walkers. Without adequate dog-walking facilities for the 112 dogs in our care, we would lose our kennel licence.

To suggest we should give all this up for the good of the city is an insult. We have been serving the people of Brighton and Hove for 50 years - which is why we exist.

Does Mr Mernagh think tenants at Patcham Court Farm should give up their homes for the good of Brighton, as well?

-Frances Lindsay-Hills, chairman, Sussex and Brighton RSPCA