Won’t have say on Rookwood

The entirely wrongheaded and unnecessary refusal by Horsham District Council to accept a public petition on Rookwood has backfired horribly.

As fast as the normal avenues of public protest are shut down, campaigners invent new ones.

The Save West Grinstead action group have cleverly resorted to a mass email campaign.

HDC councillor inboxes have been spammed with in excess of 600 emails in a just a couple of days – all protesting against the prospect of 3,500 new houses at Buck Barn under the new local plan.

These emails ask for an action I can’t take. As a Lib Dem opposition councillor, I’m not going to be given any direct input into the site shortlist currently being drawn up between planning officers and the cabinet. And when the shortlist does eventually come to council, I will not be able to vote either for or against any individual sites. It’s all of them or none of them – and councillors are not allowed to say none of them. In effect, the site selection will be controlled exclusively by the Conservative leading group, unless they split so seriously that opposition votes start to count. This process will end as it began – as the inevitable outcome of a Conservative planning policy which is 1) destroying the rural character of our district 2) swamping local neighbourhoods by doubling their size practically overnight, and 3) wiping out the separate identities of our historical settlements.

Crawley-HorshamSouthwater-Buck Barn are well on the way to becoming a single, extended urbanisation along the A24. And did any of this appear in any Conservative manifesto at district, county or national levels? It did not.

CLLRJOHNMILNE

Lib Dem, Roffey North,