LETTER: Council run in an honourable way

From a report in this paper 30 years ago (13 July 1984) it was stated by planning officers that with regards to the housing plan to 1996 ‘about 1,300 dwelling should be around Horsham in the north east of the district with another 900 in the rest of the district’.

Of course a number of councillors this year also proposed that houses in this 20 year plan should be spread across the district and not just all dumped in the north of the town in the Strategic Gap, currently protected until 2017 by a democratically voted upon planning policy.

That sensible approach was stopped by the current plan’s architects, Cllrs Dawe, Vickers, Croft and Rae.

Further your report stated that there was to be a public meeting in the Old Town Hall as ‘part of the public consultation exercise that is continuing on the draft revisions’.

Despite the Horsham Society and residents calling for public meeting to consider Cllr Vickers’ 20 year housing plan residents were unilaterally denied such a meeting.

During a ‘live facebook chat’ on 8 October 2013 Cllr Vickers said in answer to the question as to why she was refusing to hold a public meeting: ‘I have found that constructive debates that I’ve been holding with smaller groups of people have been more beneficial than having a large scale public meeting, which is invariably dominated by those with the loudest voices’.

Cllr Dawe ignored public request for such a meeting through letters and articles from the Horsham Society in this newspaper.

From the cabinet member for communications, Cllr Helena Croft, there came a deafening silence.

The Gang of Four and their cohorts need throwing out next May so we can get back to a council that used to be run honourably as so well illustrated in your past report.

E. DELGADO

Parry Close, Horsham