Letter: Billingshurst - a '˜town' with village facilities

Barbara Thomas lives in Billingshurst and wrote a heartfelt letter to one of our national newspapers last week bemoaning the fact that within six months all three of the village's banks will be closed. A letter from her also appeared in the County Times of January 25.

The nearest banks will now be in Cranleigh or Horsham.

Bearing in mind that a large slice of the population in Billingshurst is seniors, one can imagine the amount of inconvenience this will cause.

Like Barbara, I banked in Billingshurst. The reason given for the closure of my bank was that there was not enough business to justify its existence. Since there was invariably a queue when I went there, this was patently untrue.

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No, to save themselves money they are driving us all online. Not all seniors are up to speed with this and many don’t trust it - not surprising with the number of scams that occur all the time.

Actually, Billingshurst is almost a ‘No go’ area at the moment.

All last year the roadworks on the bypass drew the traffic through the village but now they’ve moved on to the roundabout to the north of Billingshurst there’s no way to avoid them.

On occasions I’ve seen stationary traffic all the way back to Five Oaks.

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Since the illuminated signs tells us these are for ‘Sewerage works’ one can only assume they are being caused by all the extra houses that are being built - some adjacent to the roundabout.

Wait until the development to the east of the village gets going for more chaos on the A272.

While all this building goes on, where are the road improvements, extra schools and doctors’ surgeries?

The Medical Centre has even lost part of its car park to yet another development next door, making it almost impossible to park without annoying the neighbours.

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Interestingly, in her letter Barbara Thomas refers to Billingshurst as ‘a town’.

That’s what it’s fast becoming - a town with the facilities of a village.

Development without improving infrastructure is madness.

David Hamilton

Billingshurst

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