LETTER: Complete betrayal over extra runway

Yet, all these issues are related, sharing the aim of creating a prosperous region, active and substantially contributing to the nation’s economy.

It would be extremely naïve to believe that these noble aims have anything to do with the motivations involved.

We, the residents of West Sussex, are the victims of various games played by national and local politicians, by the building industry and, more recently, by the owners of Gatwick Airport.

The Conservative Party, in its fixation to gain votes in the North and West of UK, has over decades allowed the transfer of resources, money and facilities from the South.

Immense sums and efforts have been allocated in the name of this strategy, mainly to the advantage of the Labour Party, but then the Conservatives main quality is their obduracy!

The cost to our local economy has been high: the infrastructure has become a joke, 50-plus years to build a road, many planned projects are even older, a token presence of broken up motorways, ancient railways lines, yet the loyalty to the Conservative Party in this region has been unquestionable, patient and persistent.

BUT NO MORE!

The strong shield of loyalty has now become a mere veneer. It has taken something almost puerile and simplistic like UKIP to explode the myth.

So, Conservative leaders beware: the voters are fed-up with a disloyal, self-serving leadership.

Like the Labour Party in 1997, just elected, were sucked in by the Housebuilder Federation millions and instigated the infamous Regions as the engine for house building permits, so the present government were led to the economic growth manger of believing that handing out thousands of building permits would engender economic growth.

Utter rubbish!

In West Sussex there are already 7,000-plus unused planning permits, yet West Sussex County Council has to deal with more thousands of planning applications which will enhance the portfolio value of the builders, but do nothing for anybody else.

Look at the numbers of immigrants employed in the trade at cheap rates instead of local builders.

Economic growth is the other sacred cow. West Sussex has enjoyed growth consistently, appealing to large numbers of people moving in the area, but there has to be a stop at some point.

Who wants to continue concreting the countryside? Who, apart from the building vultures, wants to live in a sprawling urban environment?

Certainly not those that chose to live in West Sussex and were in love with the countryside, were are our rights?

We have all the growth we, and the country, need in this region. There would be far better opportunities to create growth in the North and the West, if only the people there could be detached from the grip of the unions and their Labour minions, but that might be too much work for our Conservative friends.

Finally, the complete betrayal of every single West Sussex resident by West Sussex County Council and Horsham District Council in support of a second runway at Gatwick must mark the turning point of total mistrust in the competence of these councils. Shame on them, their comeuppance will certainly be seen at the next elections.

How can they support such a project when we hear that 18,000 new jobs will be created: there aren’t enough local unemployed people in the area.

This means that there will be more immigration of workers and their families moving into the area.

They too will need more housing and infrastructure and we know very well how keen this and past governments have been to provide us with the infrastructure we need.

L. FIORI

Georges Lane, Storrington