Under the heading Right To Protest, Sue Baumgardt says planning law rules out animal welfare as a consideration for refusal to grant permission to develop (Letters, July 14).

In my opinion, this is a smokescreen the councillors have used to defend their facile decision.

I consider Brighton Animal Action's campaign against the development at the Sealife Centre has highlighted the fact Brighton and Hove City Council's animal welfare charter is a mere piece of rhetoric.

This states: "The council will take full account, where appropriate, of animal welfare issues in its decision-making processes and promote improvements in animal welfare through its influence with other organisations."

Councillors could have refused to give consent on the grounds of animal welfare citing their charter. The Sealife Centre would then have had to decide whether to appeal with its consequential increase in cost and delay to their project.

With the extra time this would have bought, who is to say whether or not the continuing campaigns by Brighton Animal Action and suchlike would have persuaded the Sealife Centre to reconsider.

I think it likely the developers would have won an appeal but at least Brighton and Hove councillors would have stayed true to the principles within their animal welfare charter and tested the water by highlighting the need to the Secretary of State for planning law to consider both human and animal amenity within the planning process.

Unfortunately, a real opportunity has been lost. I think taxpayers of Brighton and Hove should ask their representatives why their concerns on animal welfare and the charter have been so readily ignored.

-David Hammond, Hassocks