New Horsham community centre for major development site

The plans were given the nod during a meeting of the cabinet on Thursday (March 24).

Funding totalling £2.75m will be approved by the full council at a later date, with £2.5m included in the 2022/23 capital budget and £250,000 in 2023/4.

Some £1.26m would be spent on the community centre and £1.36m on the nursery, with a budget contingency of £130,000.

The building of community facilities at the 1,000+ homes development at Highwood was part of the Land West of Horsham Masterplan 2008.

The new centre will be 300sqm, including a 100sqm hall and parking for 30-35 cars.

The 300sqm nursery will be part of the same scheme and will be retained by the council as a commercial property investment, bringing an expected six per cent return on capital.

If planning permission is given, both the community centre and nursery are expected to be opened in late 2023.

Liz Kitchen (Con, Colgate and Rusper) said: “To build a new settlement or area the size of Highwood and not to have a community centre would be a big mistake and I wholeheartedly support it.”

Ruth Fletcher (Lib Dem, Denne) said the centre had been promised to residents when they moved in and it would be ‘quite unconscionable to not go ahead’.

She added: “Obviously the community centre will need to be run effectively.

“As a council, I’m hoping that we’re going to be able to provide excellent support to getting a good management system up and running so that it’s a really vibrant, living community centre.”

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