Villagers count cars in bid to fight developer

Action group Hands Off Henfield and non-profit organisation Henfield Community Partnership have come together to contest a transport assessment submitted to Horsham District Council by housing developers Barratt Developments.

The proposal to build 160 houses in Henfield’s West End Lane has been met with great opposition from villagers.

On Monday, June 17, speed watch volunteers congregated on High Street at the turning of Church Street, which leads onto the proposed development site, to monitor the traffic flow and parking.

Henfield Community Partnership member, Tony Jackson, said: “We organised all this in less than a week, which shows the strong feelings of people in the community.”

The speed watch group was organised after Mr Jackson had reviewed Barratt Developments’ transport assessment.

The 67-year-old said: “The assessment was very superficial and we found some obvious problems in it, like showing roads where cars can park, even though it’s impossible to park there.

“We live here, we know what the roads are really like.”

Henfield Community Partnership was launched eight years ago to take on any tasks that the parish council is unable to follow up.

“Together with Hands off Henfield we recorded vehicles going in out of a number of T-junctions that lead onto the development site and recorded vehicles parked on the surrounding roads.”

The speed watch volunteers will be re-grouping today (June 20) for another assessment.

The application will be reviewed by the district council on June 30. Barratt Developments’ was asked to comment but no response was received at the time of going to press.