Supposed to live in a democracy
I stand to be corrected by Horsham District Council leader Paul Clarke but I understood the definition of a democracy was ‘a system of government by the whole population through elected representatives’, whereas we appear to reside in an area where a cabal of selected councillors decide how we should live, regardless of the wishes of the people.
This is not Putin’s Russia, nor Xi Jingping’s China and to threaten other councillors with de-selection if they oppose Mr Clarke’s plans is not only undemocratic, but absolutely appalling.
It was enlightening to read V. Sallows’ letter in last week’s County Times and learn that Billingshurst is not the only neighbourhood to have produced a plan, only for Horsham District Council to completely ignore it.
I am not sure what our local politicians are expecting, but while other councils are willing to oppose government housing plans, ours is always ready to accept more, including a proportion of other councils’ allocations, completely against the wishes of its residents.
At one time, Horsham’s Conservative council trotted out the excuse that all the extra housing was needed for our young people, to save them moving away from the area but it quickly became obvious to everyone that this was wrong, since there are few jobs locally and even so-called affordable housing was unaffordable.
It would be interesting to know how much of the new housing is being bought by people moving into the district and are they primarily from the London area, where crime is a constant concern?
Forty per cent of London’s population is now born outside of the UK and some 300 different languages are spoken. These figures compare with Paris, where 20 per cent of the population were born outside of France and Berlin, where 21 per cent of the population were born outside of Germany.
I digress and should just like to remind readers that, since
Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, the Conservative Party has received more than £11million in donations from some of the UK’s property developers, which might explain that while the Prime Minister purports to give a commitment to ‘protect more of Britain’s natural beauty’, he is meanwhile giving the green light to the Tory-donating housebuilders to build where, when and how they like.
ROBERTBISHOP Broomfield Drive, Billingshurst