LETTER: Strategic Gaps already abolished

In 2007 HDC turned down Horsham Football Club’s application to move to the Holbrook site. I never quite understood why the HFC sold its Queen Street site without having tied up its future site in a legally binding way.
By The Newsroom
Published 12th Feb 2015, 06:00 BST
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In 2009 the Cabinet unanimously agreed that the HDC should do all it could to help HFC find a new home.

Chief executive Mr Crowley and his staff have spent the past six years trying to sort out the new ground – going as far as the council taking an Option Agreement on the land to facilitate the development. Your letters pages have included very considered expressions of anger that once more HDC has let down the people it seeks to serve.

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Cllr Vickers said following the decision (29.1.15, p22) ‘The council debated the principle of the use of this site (Hop Oast) as well as different elements of the design and came to the conclusion that the site was an inappropriate location within the strategic gap’.

But Cllr Vickers has by her actions abolished the Horsham-Southwater ‘Strategic Gap’ as well as the Horsham-Crawley ‘Strategic Gap’. And by doing the latter she opened the door to Liberty in North Horsham.

Maybe there were flaws in the document presented to the Planning North Committee covering both the Jackdaw Lane and Hop Oast proposals.

But they can be put right and the decision appealed. I am sure the football club supporters will not take Cllr Vickers dismissal of the project (as reported January, 29 p22) ‘... the Hop Oast site is no longer an option for the football club’ – as final.

How on earth is this councillor allowed to make all these statements – as though they are the will of the whole council?

JANETTE WEBBER

Rusper Road, Horsham

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