LETTER: Ill-considered new development

The artist’s impression of the new so-called ‘West End’ development which was featured on last week’s Horsham edition front page confirms my worst fears. The design and materials are so ugly and out of keeping with what is still referred to – if only by estate agents – as a Sussex market town.

But the glitzy American fast-food corner restaurant remains alongside the accident prone water feature ‘Rising Universe’, which has no connection whatsoever with Horsham’s most famous son – the radical socialist and atheist poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, or ‘Red Shelley’ as he was known. In Horsham, socialist collectivism and rampant capitalism are bedfellows!

Clearly those elected district councillors who approved this appalling development are again set to vandalise our long-suffering town welcoming John Lewis as if it were the ‘Second Coming’.

For the mindless modernisers who inhabit our local corridors of power, consumerism reigns supreme – without a thought for any form of consultation with their electors. As with the North Horsham green field development – it’s a done deal. In short, ‘We know best’! And, of course, what effect the ‘West End’ development will have upon existing neighbouring stores is never mentioned.

Call me a Luddite if you so wish but to my mind, this latest ill-considered shopping development – more suited to South London’s Elephant and Castle – is the final nail in the coffin of what was once an attractive Sussex town. Shame on those responsible.

ROBERT B. WORLEY

Ayshe Court Drive, Horsham