Localism and democracy?

It was interesting to see the about-turn by HDC on the proposed plan to build 1,100 homes on Rookwood Golf Course and credit has to be given for the efforts made by the Keep Rookwood Green Alliance over many months.

Unfortunately, we know that this is not the end of the battle and the proposal will undoubtedly reappear in a few years.

I’m sure that we all remember the Localism Act, which appeared on the scene in 2011. This seemed to hold out great hope for local communities to have some control over matters such as housebuilding in their areas.

I must admit at the time it seemed to me to be pie in the sky. Why would any politician allow people to have a say in such matters?

I’m sure that many of your readers will remember the exciting promises made, such as establishing powerful new rights for local people and communities, radically reforming planning and making housing fairer and more democratic. What’s happened to these promises some ten years later?

However, many communities took the promises at their face value and embarked on the production of a neighbourhood plan.

This turned out to be a very laborious project, which demanded lots of people’s time, cost lots of money, involved the creation of a new generation of experts in neighbourhood planning and took many years to produce.

With this in mind, I have considerable sympathy for the letter from V. Sallows in last week’s County Times.

They obviously believe that all the work that went into preparing a neighbourhood plan for Rusper was a waste of time. Will we feel the same when the neighbourhood plan for Horsham town is eventually accepted after more than seven years of hard work?

We can but hope but I suspect that we will be disappointed and people power will have to be demonstrated in a different way as we have seen with Rookwood.

I also despair when I see the threat to councillors, who decide to support the views of their electorate, that they would be harming any future political career if they ‘chose to ignore a group majority vote’.

Is this what localism and democracy is actually about?

DAVID MOORE Swindon Road, Horsham