LETTER: 6,000 affordable homes to come?

In your piece last week (15.1.15, p7, ‘Decision on football ground is due’) you report on the linked application to build 57 homes on Jackdaw Lane.

You report that ‘only 17.5 per cent of affordable housing is proposed on site below the current target (of HDC) of 40 per cent’.

There have been references in your paper to the urgent need in our district for social/affordable housing. But developers are not interested – they make their money out of ‘executive’ homes. Even if they agree to a notional figure in a planning application, they build as few affordable houses as they possibly can.

So what will happen if this wonderful Cllr Vickers led scheme to build 15,000 plus houses around Horsham goes ahead?

Will there be 6,000 (40 per cent) affordable/social houses for young people in the district to move out of their family homes, thus allowing them to stay in Horsham to work in all the new jobs, that Cllrs Vickers and Rae are planning on their big industrial unit on the other side of the A264! Does anyone believe this?

ANDREW MITCHELL

North Parade, Horsham