Horsham Society: Public, private, park and Baumol

This weeks column is by Oliver Farley

The Friends of Horsham Park are busily researching the history of the park and hope to publish their findings for the centenary in 2028.   In 1928 the Town Clerk of Horsham Urban District Council, was Archibald Slyfield, the grandfather of a senior member of the Horsham Society.   When Archibald took up office in 1919 Horsham’s population numbered 11,000 and HUDC had a core staff of eight.

 There are no comparative figures for total budgets at that time, but the council was involved with a series of projects of public works, e.g. the Oakhill Estate, building houses at £980 each.

 There is the interesting question of the interplay between public and private spheres, plus of course the purpose of fair taxation. Historically, government saw its role as restricted largely to upholding the law and defending the realm, but major national events and economic progress have caused financial responsibility to swing back and forth.

 Famine in the 19th century pushed up government relief programmes and then wars in the 20th century prompted further public social involvement.

 Private enterprise in the 19th century became adept at using the blunt instrument of Acts of Parliament to bludgeon though the railway tracks. Look at the bridge over East Street and it can be seen where the line bisects Park Terrace East from Park Terrace West where their square should be.  Railways supplied both the infrastructure and the means of transport.

 With the advent of private cars, the emphasis changed to the purchasers pressurising the state to provide the infrastructure which car manufacturers did not. Hence the sacrifice of direct access to Horsham Park by the dual carriage way of Albion Way, built allegedly for the convenience of those who want to pass Horsham, not use it.

 Phones and broadcasting came in first as state monopolies, with copper cable laid by the mile as public infrastructure. Now East Street has a telecommunications mast to enhance mobile phone transmission with satellites forming the primary infrastructure.

Today’s discussions about the regulation of AI and other social media can be judged against this background of altering mutual interdependence of public and private interests.

 Social expectations too have strengthened the case for public funding with the present Horsham District Council listing at least fifteen areas of responsibilities, including the Park, many of which would have been unknown to Archibald.

 The budget for 2026-2027 is proposed at £55m for a town of over 40,000.That number illustrates in part the Baumol effect where standard public services rise in cost but not apparently in quality or quantity because labour cost is set by increasingly productive private sector labour and the public sector must pay competitive wages to attract staff.

 The expectation that government, national and local, would supply health, housing and much else would be a wonder to Town Clerk Archibald; its cost in today’s terms should perhaps not be a wonder to us.

 For more information see www.horshamsociety.org