February's meeting on the future of the site of the Royal Alexandra Childrens' Hospital seemed to raise more questions than it answered.

Brighton NHS Health Trust seemed to have boxed itself into a corner, relying on money from the sale of the site, without planning permission, to equip the new Childrens' Hospital in the grounds of The Royal Sussex County Hospital.

This leaves it to the prospective developers to come up with proposals for the site's future.

This is less than satisfactory as the winning bidder may not be the most sympathetic to the needs of the community and the Seven Dials area in particular.

A ray of hope that the older buildings could be preserved and integrated into whatever emerges and that trees would be protected as part of the conservation area came from the planners at the meeting.

Time is now short. After years of planning and building the new hospital, the trust is only now talking to the planning department. It urgently needs to raise funds as it is in deficit.

This needs to be a subtle and clever development to satisfy all parties. Let's hope the right developer comes along.

We need a scheme which preserves the integrity of the site with minimum intrusion into the neighbouring properties and respects any covenants on the land regarding continuing community uses.

-Trefor Hunter, Brighton