LETTER: Shoddy behaviour to tax payers

Prior to the campaign to halt the development of 2,500 houses etc being built along the A264, Horsham northern bypass there was the successful campaign to save Broadbridge Heath Sports Centre.

This campaign exposed a great deal of dubious behaviour on the part of HDC.

Throw into the mix Paul Kornycky’s excellent detective work in bringing to light the ‘doctored’ figures by HDC when pushing forward the plan for the kick-start scheme (whatever that is) to secure the £650,000 plus to waste on the West Street supposed enhancement.

Now it is finished some of the work would be eligible for the television programme ‘Cowboy Builders’.

Prior to these aforementioned campaigns there was the one to try to stop HDC Cabinet taking away our Town Hall for continued community use and leasing it to the private sector for restaurant use.

Restaurants, to use an old expression, are ‘ten a penny’ or ‘twelve a penny’ in Horsham’s case, there are so many.

Anyone who opposed the cabinet in their outlandish and irresponsible decision was branded vexatious.

It is a generally held view that when a local council forms a cabinet that is when the rot sets in, secret meetings, decisions made, not even available to the public through the Freedom of Information Act.

We were all innocents until recently, not realising the machinations of our local authority.

They were able to imbue the public that those trying to save Horsham Town Hall were fanatics or cranks.

I remember, after one meeting with the council, a request was made for a tape recording but, surprise, surprise, the machine hadn’t been switched on.

Again, a notice was put up for an imminent meeting, only hours away leaving the campaigners no time to prepare.

Another time, during days of icy weather when the pavements hadn’t been cleared, a notice advertising a meeting suddenly appeared on the Town Hall but nobody could get near to read it for fear of falling over.

I only wish that the exposures concerning Horsham District Council’s practises, which are turning up every week in this paper, had taken place before, say three of four years ago, things would have probably turned out differently.

But please WSCT don’t refer, as in a recent review, to the Town Hall as having been disused when it was manoeuvred from community use.

During the last part of its life in that role it was under-used because Horsham District Council ‘hiked’ up the rental charge beyond anyone’s reach so that it would appear not to be in demand for bookings.

See what I mean!

W. MORRIS

Dorking Road, Horsham