Reader's letter: Broadbridge Heath community has been ‘ripped off enough’ with disastrous deal

Oh no, there’s another disastrous consequence of the appalling deal struck by Horsham District Council (HDC) in 2011 with Countryside Properties relating to the massive 1,000-home ‘West of Horsham’ development at Broadbridge Heath (BBH).

Not only will there not now be the promised new primary school, but the associated site will not be provided for community use, but be retained (at nil cost) by the developer.

This was reported in last week’s County Times and confirmed by (yet another) anonymous ‘HDC spokesman’ who somewhat bluntly said “... the land will remain with the landowner free from restriction. Any alternative use of the land will require planning permission...”.

Wouldn’t it have been more open and transparent for that same ‘HDC spokesman’ to have apologised for the crass S106 deal that HDC originally agreed with the developer?

This was a deal that:

• Provided only 20 per cent on-site Affordable Homes against the then policy requirement of 40 per cent;

• Agreed an excess profit clawback mechanism that simply didn’t work despite rapidly rising house prices;

• Accepted a 1Ha extension site for the BBH leisure centre that was ‘inaccessible’, being the other side of a ransom strip;

• Signed off on a viability assessment with a blatant £5m affordable housing mix error favouring the developer;

• Accepted inadequate funding for the proposed new BBH football club pavilion, with well over £0.5m additional HDC funds required to complete;

• Still hasn’t provided the promised West of Horsham public transport shuttle link to/from Horsham (also to include the Berkeley’s Highwood development).

The loss of the school site land would be the final straw in this sorry saga of failure.

Blaming now departed chief execs, planning directors and council leaders is simply not good enough.

Some of today’s ruling group councillors were certainly around at the time that this S106 deal was approved by their political party.

They have a moral obligation to ensure that every possible measure is now taken to try to retain this land for community use.

The community has been ripped off enough with this developer skewed deal already.

HDC must now block this final injustice.

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