LETTER : Wheel of good fortune for Londoners of the future

Sir: I am delighted that your reporter welcomes a "bit of vulgarity on the river" (16 April). London needs modern additions that add interest to the world's finest city.

Too often it has been assumed that London can only remain a great city if the architecture is fossilised in a Victorian sediment, laid down by the heir to the throne. Great cities change and develop and the pyramid in the Louvre and the Grand Arch at La Defense show that, with confidence and style, change can add interest and delight to a historic city such as Paris.

The Wheel must be built, and we will soon learn to love it. As a four- year-old I saw the Skylon and the funfairs of the 1951 exhibition. I was not old enough at the time to realise that they were destroyed by Churchill as examples of socialist celebration.

The Wheel is to be funded by a commercial organisation. As a socialist, I have no problem with that. I just hope that the incoming Labour government - despite having purged itself of any scintilla of socialism - will have more vision than Churchill and allow the Wheel to delight my, as yet unborn, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Hugh Collis

London N8