LETTER: Candidate choice is astounding

I’m astounded to read that Cllr Helena Croft, who was dumped by the executive council of the Horsham Conservative Association (19.2.15, p1), is to be parachuted into Henfield ward in another Conservative Association where Cllr Rawe Dawe (Tory leader) and Brian O’Connell (chairman) are significant players. Henfield is 13 miles south of Roffey which she currently represents and lives.

After her humiliation of obtaining as few as six out of three dozen votes from Tory members most would let matters rest whilst seeking insight into why they’d been ditched by so many.

And so it must be the ‘power’ thing that drives Cllr Helena Croft or the urging of her dear leader Cllr Ray Dawe.

He played his part when he ensured that Cllr O’Connell (a Henfield councillor and also former deputy cabinet member to Cllr Vickers) was parachuted in as chairman instead of Cllr Christian Mitchell the then vice-chairman.

And his crime for which he was punished? To vote against a flawed housing plan that has been judge to be ‘unsound’.

Those Henfield residents you quoted seemed mainly concerned that Cllr Croft is from Roffey not Henfield.

The other issues the public seem to associate with her are going against the wishes of her residents in Roffey in supporting the Liberty plan for North Horsham and the shambles under her leadership of the money squandered in the re-development of West Street.

DAVID SHIPTON

Downsview Road,

Horsham