LETTER: Plan decision was shameful

The majority of the Horsham district councillors who attended Monday's Extraordinary Council Meeting, held to decide the application to build 2,750 houses and a business park on countryside North of Horsham voted, in favour of the application.
By The Newsroom
Published 25th May 2017, 11:32 BST
Updated 4th Jun 2017, 21:29 BST

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Momentous issue for town

I am surprised at the balance of content in the County Times of May 18.

1. There was a two page spread of editorial material on ‘Fighting Fake News’, celebrating ‘trusted local journalism’, committed to ‘serving you the whole truth’; ‘holding decision makers to account’.

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2. In the usual editorial section(p30), a ‘new vision for a fresh round of town centre improvements’ was welcomed, but, in relation to the meeting of the full Council on Monday 22/5, finally deciding on the most momentous issue for Horsham in at least twenty years, there was no comment that I could see.

3. Was it editorial policy just to accept Claire Vickers’ and Ray Dawe’s line that all challenges to Liberty’s North Horsham Development Plan were now futile?

4. In the same edition, in the Opinion letters section, there was the usual range of excellent, informed questions and comments about the development. These,together with relevant articles from the Horsham Society, have been pouring in for months now, and credit is due to the newspaper for printing so many.

5. But where was the finale, the Editor’s summary of the whole debate - an equivalent ‘two page spread’, giving a view of the whole Liberty proposal, the stance taken by the Council, the range of issues raised by those assiduous letter writers over such a long period, its final opinion to all the councillors before their crucial meeting?

In the vernacular - ‘Zilch’.

6.Why? Is this ‘holding decision makers to account’?

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No doubt this week’s edition will comment on the result at some length, but I say, ‘too late, too late - you are in danger of becoming a P.R.organ for the Council’.

Bob Haughton

Smithbarn, Horsham

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Related topics:NorthCouncil