Better use could be made of land

Has WSCC taken leave of its senses with its plan to spend £15 million of our money on a retail park at Broadbridge Heath?

While agreeing with Jeremy Hunt that this is an ‘under-utilised county council brownfield site’ I cannot see how this project will ‘support economic recovery and regeneration as part of our economic reset plan’. With the town centre struggling for survival, the spokesman for WSCC adds that ‘the proposed retailers are not usually found in high street locations’. True enough, but they are to be found on the doorstep of this site.

Why put a discount food store in the back garden of a Tesco Superstore and when there are two other good food stores barely 400 metres away (Budgens and the new Co-op) with One-Stop only a few metres further off?

About 200 metres to the east is the large Homebase DIY and garden store. Newbridge Nursery is a splendid, large well established garden centre barely 800 metres down the road to the west. Both Newbridge and Tesco have very good coffee shops.

Only left is the drive-in takeaway which seems to be rather low priority and that need, if there is one, can surely be satisfied in and around Horsham where there are over sixty establishments providing takeaway, many of them also offering delivery and kerbside collection.

Surely better use could be made of this land. A doctor’s surgery has been suggested and there must be a call for this with huge expansion in the population of Broadbridge Heath.

We are desperately short of affordable housing in this area. How about some good quality small houses and flats for rent or purchase to enable young people to get on to the property ladder.

I do urge the county council to think again and not waste money on superfluous retail premises especially in these days when so many businesses are fighting for their lives and many young people are unable to move out of the parental home until they are at least 40. SUSAN OVERTON

School Hill, Warnham