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Letter: Work with Waitrose
I AM WRITING in response to a letter from Phillip Tapsfield in your edition of January 25, regarding many issues surrounding Storrington and Sullington Parish Council.
As the former parish clerk for many years I should like to make it clear that the present councillors are NOT unelected; they were ELECTED UNOPPOSED as no other parishioners of the area put their names forward for election to the parish council.
If they had there would have been an election.
It is extremely difficult to get people to join the parish council as most people are not prepared to work for nothing, despite their much vaunted concern about ‘our Storrington’.
As it is these people give a great deal of their unpaid time to take office.
Many of the current parish councillors have given well over 15 years to their posts, which are completely unpaid. Nor do they claim any expenses. As such they deserve respect not abuse.
If those doing the criticising feel that they can do a better job then why don’t they join the council?
It is very easy to criticise from the outside when you have no idea of what is involved and are not prepared to do the job yourself.
When it comes to planning issues, such as the Waitrose development, planning policy has to be applied. In this case those members implemented this to high standard.
Should this application be refused because people ‘don’t like it’ and not on planning grounds, Waitrose would take it to appeal and they would undoubtedly win, causing the taxpayers (ie, us) a great deal of expense in paying their costs.
This is a complete waste of public money. The best thing for the parish council (and indeed the district council) to do is what they have done – try to get the best they can out of the application by getting Waitrose to work with them to improve the plans.
People need to understand that not liking something or not wanting it are not grounds for refusing it. This shows a complete lack of understanding of how the planning system works.
I personally believe that Waitrose will listen to all the comments made at the meeting and try to accommodate them as much as possible.
As for the SOS petition, this has been signed many times by the same small group of people and does not therefore represent a true figure.
In any case it represents a very small minority of the population of Storrington – it is always the ‘antis’ who shout the loudest.
The silent majority are either for the proposal or not bothered either way. The protesters do not have the public support that they seem to think they have.
We all should be very grateful to Waitrose for their support in giving monies to so many worthy causes.
How many other supermarkets give £1,000 every month to local causes? This should be commended by all of us.
LINDA YOUNGER
Oak Close
Storrington
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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Comments
There are 2 comments to this article
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paul Storrington
Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 03:46 PMAlex in Storrington perfectly contrasts the hysterical views of the "antis" with the cogently expressed reasoning of Linda Younger. Linda expresss the views of most Storrington residents I am sure from what I have heard. There is a vocifeous minority of "objectionables" who would oppose anything for the sake of "opposing". Not sure what they are trying to prove but for sure when one objector feels obliged to wrote 27 times to the HDC Planning website then I think we can see where Linda Younger is coming from.
Alex in Storrington
Monday, February 13, 2012 at 05:18 PMThe development should be opposed under those planning rules which mean that the council is obliged to conserve the village of Storrington. This huge store application does not conserve Storrington, it would appear to wreck it. There would appear to be other planning rules which would enable the council to reject this appalling development. There is an obvious compromise position, where Waitrose is allowed to expand into the wine merchants only. Waitrose should acknowledge that many people do not want this development. Is Waitrose prepared to compromise? If not, why not? Linda Younger says in her letter “The silent majority are either for the proposal or not bothered either way”, where is the proof that this is so? What evidence does she have to back that statement? If she is unable to prove the truth of that statement, then why is she making such statements? As for being grateful to Waitrose that’s laughable, I’ll be grateful when they withdraw the application. The Parish council needs to ballot the people of Storrington on whether or not they want this development, and if the people of Storrington do not want this development then the council needs to wholeheartedly oppose the development.
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