LETTER: Senseless site for football club

Perhaps you or your readers could answer the following questions:

1. When the club sold its Queen Street freehold to Sunleys in 2004, what safeguards for the future of the club did the directors take to ensure that they had a suitable site to locate to?

2. When the club purchased the Holbrook Club with the intention of making this their new permanent home, what assurances did they receive from Horsham District Council that consent would be granted for a new stadium?

If none was forthcoming, then why did they proceed with the purchase?

3. Whilst no one should doubt that a town the size of Horsham should have a proper football facility, who decided that the Tower Hill/Denne Park area – the best residential area in the town – was the most suitable location for a football stadium with its attendant traffic, noise and light pollution problems, all of which would lead to a depreciation in the value of existing residents’ properties?

At a time when Horsham appears to be surrounded by current developments, and is facing the threat of the proposed scheme north of the northern bypass, it seems not only senseless, but down right iniquitous, to impose this project on the residents of Denne Park and Salisbury Road, an area of rural tranquillity, to satisfy the apparent need of such a small number of people.

Broadbridge Heath (or if it happens), north of Horsham, are the obvious locations, both with excellent road communications, which Worthing Road is clearly lacking.

Despite the fact that a planning application has not yet been made, let alone granted, there appears to be an extremely close and possibly unhealthy relationship between Horsham council, Horsham FC and Horsham Golf and Fitness Club, to the extent that there is a clear indication that this is a ‘done deal’.

Is this one of the ‘intelligent green priorities’ that the council ‘propose to develop and adopt’ as per their website?

If so, it is a totally discredited policy.

ROBIN A. LAMB

Burton Park, Duncton, Petworth