Development should be halted

Despite this, planning applications are already in, and actual building taking place, for over 500 more dwellings. Very few of these are the affordable homes that our young people are desperately in need of.

A conservative estimate puts the number of extra cars on our roads at around 400. The developers, of course, would have us believe otherwise! These will only add to our existing pollution problems without solving local housing need.

Horsham District Council considers each application individually, rather than cumulatively, so the large picture is ignored and development goes on unchecked. HDC should, by now, have produced their own Local Plan for sustainable development, recommending areas and sizes of development according to need. Without this a developer submits a proposal on, say, a Greenfield site and, although HDC may oppose this, on appeal the plans go through because HDC has no alternative plan! The cumulative effect on the air quality, water usage and sewerage strains our aging systems, whilst doctors’ surgeries, local hospitals and local public transport needs are greatly underestimated.

Enough is enough! ALL development in and around Storrington should be halted immediately and no plans for further development should ever be considered until the existing problems of traffic through Storrington and resultant air pollution are resolved. Instead we are faced with 130 dwellings on productive agricultural land on the outskirts of Storrington.- land that should be used to grow our own food, to be self-reliant for our basic needs, NOT turned into a housing estate.

HDC, and indeed West Sussex County Council need new Councillors with new ideas and the will to resolve these issues instead of endlessly sitting on them.

Peter Westrip

UKIP Prospective

District Councillor

Nightingale Close, Storrington