The front-page headline of The Argus, "Park here without paying and you could be fined - unless you are a traveller" (November 5) missed the point.

It did not, in any case, include any response from the Travellers themselves or from any travellers' organisations.

Nor did it make any distinction between residents visiting Black Rock car park for occasional leisure visits, as I often do, and those forced to stay there by economic necessity.

Travellers travel because their household economies and culture are based on it.

In the winter, travellers need sites with hard standings because they would be bogged down on grass sites.

Travellers travel in groups for security against racist attacks and for the support of their families.

And travellers only have one site in the whole of Brighton and Hove and it is still closed.

This site is only used by new travellers in any case and not by Irish or traditional English travellers.

Brighton and Hove City Council has always ducked the need to provide for travellers.

There is, for instance, a temporary, hard-surfaced, over-wintering site at the derelict Preston Barracks, which could be used if or until it is redeveloped.

Instead, the council has turned travellers away from there for the past three years.

It is too easy to take a dig at travellers. It is time we took a dig at a society which tolerates widespread homelessness, while building giant tower blocks destined to become second homes for the travelling super-rich.

-Dave Bangs, secretary, Sussex Travellers Action Group, Brighton