LETTER: ‘No way’ to a new town on this site

As a former Lib Dem district councillor, and I might even be so again, I had always assumed that this idea had been put to bed some seven or eight years ago by District.

It is a crazy money grubbing idea that is a completely unsustainable project. I accept that there is a belief that there will be a need for the extra housing proposed, but will the jobs be there to underpin the viability of this scheme, and if there are,then where?

There is no guarantee that Gatwick, even with a new runway, will provide more than a few hundred additional jobs, employment on the Crawley industrial estates is static, along with those in Burgess Hill, and there are numerous unused industrial units looking for new tenants throughout the district.

But, be that as it may, as far as road and rail provision is concerned, there is absolutely no more room for expansion, even with the improvement afoot on the A 23 at Handcross. All the minor B and C roads will become rat-runs for commuters and school runners (hence the plan maybe of the County to borrow some millions to improve all the minor roads ?).

The building of some new health centres, primary schools and a new ‘Academy’, with open all hours convenience stores of the Co-op and Tesco pattern, will just add to the horrible urbanisation of this part of our district.

Added to which, the destruction of natural and wildlife habitats in this area of currently soggy water meadows linked to the Adur.

Add all this together,and the answer can only be a loud raspberry of a ‘NO WAY’.

Having made that point of course I do realise that no one would have even considered this proposal without some nudging from Whitehall and believing this to be the case, then we really must get all our MPs on board to help put a stop to this awful proposal.

A New Town might well be needed in West or East Sussex, but certainly not here.

ANDREW G. PURCHES

Hyde Lane, Upper Beeding