‘No room at the Holiday Inn’ - Three Bridges polling station location has to change

Three Bridges councillors have asked why they were not consulted when one of the neighbourhood’s polling station was moved.
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For years, Crawley Borough Council has booked space at the Holiday Inn Express, in Haslett Avenue East, for people to cast their votes.

This year, however, the polling station will be moved to The Hawth theatre as the council was unable to book the hotel.

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During a meeting of the full council on Wednesday (March 30), Conservative councillor Brenda Burgess and Labour’s Atif Nawaz both asked why no one had told them about the change before it was made.

Holiday Inn Express in Three Bridges (Google Maps Streetview)Holiday Inn Express in Three Bridges (Google Maps Streetview)
Holiday Inn Express in Three Bridges (Google Maps Streetview)

Mrs Burgess pointed out that she would have been in the dark about the decision if approached by residents.

She added: “Was there actually no time at all that the ward members could have been approached?

“There are three of us and none of us were consulted.

“It would have been nice to have known what was happening in my own ward.”

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Mr Nawaz raised concerns that residents might not notice that the location of the polling station had changed.

He predicted that some may not bother to vote if they head to the Holiday Inn only to be told they were in the wrong place.

The decision to move the polling station was made by Natalie Brahma-Pearl, chief executive and returning officer.

The meeting was told that, when the hotel fell through, there was only a short time to get the new data for the polling cards to the printers.

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So the change was made under urgency provisions, as set out in the Constitution.

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