LETTER: Substantially less financially viable

Next year a new system comes in and as well as paying for on-site infrastructure, developers will also pay towards wider infrastructure needs via ‘CIL’: a fixed contribution of £125 per square metre for all developments throughout the district.

But the council has calculated that, because developing the site itself will (apparently) be so expensive, the developer will not be able to afford this, so they have created a special ‘zone’ just for North of Horsham which will be charged at only £50 per square metre: that’s a 60 per cent reduction in the money going towards Horsham’s infrastructure.

HDC will not charge CIL for business developments so the business park will not bring in any CIL money at all.

As a member of the public, I was compeletely unaware that North of Horsham was substantially less financially viable than other developments on offer.

Which of our councillors who voted in favour, knew about this? Who believes that these 2,500 homes will have so little affect on Horsham that it will be OK to upgrade our infrastructure using only 40 per cent of the money per dwelling that would be available from any other scheme?

You can read the details in http://www.horsham.gov.uk/environment/planning_policy/documents/CIL-PreliminaryDraftChargingSchedule.pdf which is out for consultation until 27th June.

RUTH FLETCHER

Ashleigh Road, Horsham