Letter: Truly appalling achievement

What a great report online by your journalist Oli Poole in exposing the fact that Sussex Police are, by deliberate policy, failing to seek any infrastructure contributions from developers of new homes, where the development is for less than 100 homes.
Letter: Truly appalling achievementLetter: Truly appalling achievement
Letter: Truly appalling achievement

According to the Police Commissioner, it’s more productive for them to concentrate on the larger developments.

So let’s also examine just how well they have done on the more recent larger sites in Horsham District where S106 applies for developer contributions, rather than CIL (Community Infrastructure Levy). Readers may well be aware of these ‘strategic’ sites -

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475 Homes East of Billingshurst (inc 130 Affordable) - No police contribution secured.

594 Homes West of Southwater (inc 178 Affordable) - No police contribution secured.

227 Homes at Kilnwood Vale Reserve Site,West of Crawley (inc. 91 Affordable) - No police contribution secured.

2,750 Homes at North of Horsham (inc 495 Affordable) - £117,690 secured (original request for £412,420 declined due to ‘issues with viability affecting contributions to infrastructure providers’!)

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Total Homes 4,046 (inc 894 Affordable) so just a £37.24 contribution per market property. That doesn’t sound very much at all, does it?

Consider this, in Horsham District CIL is charged at £135 per sq metre (excluding Affordable Homes). If an average property is 85 sq metres, then CIL would be £11,475 per property.

So Sussex Police have achieved less than one third of one per cent of the CIL equivalent (0.325 per cent). That is a truly appalling achievement.

No wonder the Police Commissioner has had to rush out an ‘in denial’ statement. At least we now know why the Sussex Police precept on our Council Tax bills has increased by (approx.) three times the rate of inflation.

Never mind, we can all be comforted by the fact that the housing developers continue to make record profits.

Paul Kornycky

Cox Green, Rudgwick