LETTER: What makes Horsham tick

Doubtless he is a nice fellow and well intentioned, but what qualifies the self-styled ‘Community Enthusiast’, Pedro Martins, to lecture us on personal happiness? For example, he states, ‘Too much ice cream will certainly give you tummy ache’. To anyone with an ounce of common sense, that is blindingly obvious - and amounts to nothing more than baby talk.

So Mr Martins - who gained a degree in Psychology and is the manager of a recently opened Horsham restaurant - appears to think that he is the fount of all wisdom and that we should heed his erudite words of advice.

In his column (WSCT July 24th), he questions, ‘Is Horsham a balanced town? Once again, we have to start by looking into our lives, if we are not living a balanced life we won’t be ourselves, and we cannot give what we don’t have. Fact.’

He continues, ‘We, people of Horsham, are the ones that can decide and can make it happen. Not only the government or council, as decision makers have say or role in this matter’.

Really? Here one has to question where our guru, Mr Martins, has been for the last couple of months or so when your letters column has been filled with heart-felt complaints about the proposed housing and industrial development planned for the north of the town.

I don’t know how long Mr Martins has lived in Horsham but I can trace my own family - on both sides - back for generations. True, I don’t have a degree in Psychology but I think I am more aware than Pedro of what makes Horsham tick - a local authority that always knows best - and never listens to its electorate!

In short - like so many rural market towns in the Home Counties - Horsham has suffered over the last fifty years or so due primarily to an influx of people fleeing London and beyond - to the extent that we are now grossly overcrowded - with yet more major developments in the pipeline.

And if that makes me ‘unbalanced’ - then so be it.

BARBARA A. WORLEY

Ayshe Court Drive, Horsham