LETTER: Residents’ chance to share views

After just one week we are very pleased with the response from readers. It will take us longer to distribute the petition to all the houses we intend to cover so we have extended the closing date into May.

We are not bound to accept the six weeks (four with Easter lost) set by HDC and we will be sending the public response direct to the Inspectorate.

So it is a real opportunity for residents fed up/ annoyed by the whole of the council process to say so.

The petition asks residents 1) not to recognise the legitimacy of HDC’s third consultation (23 March to 24 April); 2) share our lack of confidence in the process; 3) oppose the flawed plans for the whole district and demand a ‘fundamental review’ before the council goes any further.

The reasons for this are stated on the petition document (p2).

The current 6 week period of consultation about the final HDC version of the plan to go back to the Inspector can hardly be ‘full public consultation’ when there are no public meetings, an exhibition run (and funded?) by an American developer Liberty which seems to have taken over the planning functions of HDC and a web site that is impossible for ordinary folk to understand requiring 37 three page responses to fulfil HDC terms.

The Petition seeks to tell the Inspector that the whole process adopted by HDC has so much wrong with it – that it cannot be allowed to continue. By 7 May hopefully the personnel around that council table will have changed significantly. New councillors might take quite a different view about the plan.

This plan will materially affect residents across the district – if we simply confine attention to the already creaking infrastructure.

We need a fresh approach to find a plan that we can all agree to – even if we are unhappy about the number of houses being foisted upon us.

You can sign an E-Petition on line – so simple (www.petition@saving northhorsham.co.uk ) or you can download a copy or use the one we hope you will get through the letter box and take or post it to Millennium Hall – Petition, Roffey, Crawley Road RH12 4DT.

Dr Geoffrey Richardson

Tennyson Close, Horsham