Letter: Cash could be better allocated

I am a bit surprised at Cllr Barrett-Miles fury that anyone should question whether a £6million contribution to West Sussex Council for education and highways is a good use of projected income from the first 20% of the expected £40million arising from the town’s acceptance of the major part of the housing commitment of Mid Sussex District.

The County Council is legally responsible for providing education with or without input of funds from housing developments and in fact a proposal for a school on the East of Kingsway was turned down because there is said to be adequate capacity locally already.

Maybe Cllr Barrett-Miles would share my view that the £6million might have been better allocated to Community Infrastructure and Community Buildings, both allowable under the terms of funding received from housing developments and easier to target on Burgess Hill as we have promised.I will be taking a real interest in the progress of the Development Board and sincerely hope it is successful in starting to deliver the improvements detailed in the excellent Neighbourhood Plan but I would much rather the delivery vehicle was the proposed Community Interest Company which would have been much more Burgess Hill based and reading the Council minutes for late 2011 and early 2012 was most enthusiastically supported by Cllr Barrett-Miles. Even Nicholas Soames was impressed with the idea as was the Minister of State for Local Government.There was no suggestion at that time that the idea would be illegal and I am very suspicious that the Community Interest Company was really dropped because Mid Sussex Council were unwilling to endorse it or co-operate with it. If that is so then we are entitled to ask why unless it was to ensure that all the funding would not be used in Burgess Hill.

Councillor David Andrews,

Oak Hall Park, Burgess Hill