I was deeply disappointed to read Councillor Juliet McCaffery's misinformed letter regarding Sussex Police's request for information on Travellers' bookings at the Hilton Metropole Hotel (Letters, June 14).

I understand the police spokesman went on to explain that the only times they had been summoned to the hotel for public order offences in the past two years were when travellers were involved.

Surely this is simple operational expediency. It certainly doesn't warrant Coun McCaffery playing the race card.

Should she require evidence of the lawless behaviour of this particular group of people she only has to visit Stanmer Park.

There she will see they have unlawfully expropriated public recreational land on both Stanmer North and Stanmer South playing fields to the exclusion of the electorate she purports to represent.

The remainder of her letter was largely non sequitur in that the provision of seasonal working holiday sites for travellers has no bearing whatever on their behaviour in the hotel.

Having said that, I would challenge Coun McCaffery's estimate of their number in England and Wales. The number of 300,000 is bandied about by the Gipsy Council and a local advocacy group, Friends, Families and Travellers. The best estimate by any department of state, namely the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Department of Education and a recent Commons Select Committee, is 90,000-120,000. Some 90 per cent of those are deemed to live in their own or rented permanent accommodation.

Their annual presence in Brighton and Hove is entirely seasonal and there is more than adequate site provision already for those who choose to live permanently in caravans.

-Peter Carmichael, Hove