It is sad Brighton and Hove City Council gave planning permission for two hard-surface hockey pitches, a club house, an access road and floodlights to be built on our grassy field, the BHASVIC field in Hove.

What a slap in the face for the local community.

Why was Brighton and Hove Hockey Club not directed towards Stanley Deason or Waterhall. Both these sites already have hard pitches and enough space to accommodate a club house. It seems our field was a soft target.

The scales were very much weighted against us residents. Most of us had less than a week's notice of the planning meeting which decided the matter.

The applicants had 18 months to fine-tune their application and discuss it privately with the planners.

We had three minutes to directly address the committee.

All other communications were filtered through a planning officer, who had already decided to support the application.

Although we were so handicapped, we still managed to point out weaknesses in the submission.

1 "The field is well served by public transport" Hardly. An evening service every 30 minutes, at least five minutes walk away.

2 "The hockey players will be arriving by said public transport" Unlikely, given point 1 above.

3 "The car drivers will all park in Cardinal Newman's car park, which will be left open whenever the club house or pitches are in use" We shall see.

4 "Stanford Junior School, joint user of the field, needn't be, or had been, consulted" Yes, it should have been consulted. No, it had not been consulted.

5 "Sport England supported the application" Well, yes, but only because it was unaware other schools used the field. If it had known this, it says it would not have supported the scheme.

6 The two proposed hockey pitches will impinge both on one of the football pitches and the summer running track used by Stanford Junior School.

7 "This proposal will affect only a few houses in Old Shoreham Road" Not according to those who live in the roads which run south from the field and know how very quickly sound travels down their streets.

8 "The loss of more than 30 per cent of the grassy area is of no concern to the general neighbourhood" 300 concerned people signed a petition against this loss, which the council chose to ignore.

My advice to anyone living near an open, grassy area is to be vigilant. Someone, somewhere may be eyeing it up and discussing how it could be developed with the council.

-J Hales, Hove