Horsham Labour Party's chair, David Hide, went to the public consultation exhibition organised by Berkely Homes and was not impressed. He wrote this letter to the West Sussex County Times, which was printed today.
Is the West of Horsham Development Consultation process nothing more than a sham? I would conclude from having attended the Berkeley Homes public consultation exhibition held at Arunside School, that it most certainly is.
Local residents’ greatest concern is the lack of affordable housing in the developers’ proposal and yet the questionnaire that attendees are encouraged to fill out makes no reference to this issue.
Berkeley Homes’ exhibition boards make great play of their ‘ability to understand local issues and deal with customer needs on an individual basis’ and then claims that the development has ‘a significant proportion of affordable housing’
How can this be defined as ‘significant’ when until recently the site was deemed to require 40% affordable, and not just the 20% now offered by Berkeley Homes?
The developer clearly is not listening. The ‘customer needs’ in this instance, the needs of the many thousands of local people currently living in inappropriate accommodation, will in the main be ignored by the developers’ proposal.
This proposal which is set to go for planning permission at the end of November must be thrown out by the council, as it flies in the face of the council’s own housing strategy which identifies a requirement for a minimum of 40% affordable on sites of this scale.
The developer claims that it can no longer afford to provide that level of affordability and have submitted an enabling case document by way of justification to the council.
While at the exhibition I asked Andrew McPhilips, land and planning director for Berkeley Homes, if he would provide me with a copy of the case document. He responded by saying that it was confidential and he therefore could not do this.
What type of consultation is this, when information justifying a reduction in affordable housing, submitted by a commercial developer whose main responsibilities are to their share holders and not the people of Horsham, is not available to those supposedly being consulted ?
As I left the exhibition I caught sight of one final board which read ‘Consultation List of Stakeholders’, at the bottom of a very long list read ‘the local community’. Enough said I think.
David Hide
Chair Horsham Labour Party
Horsham Labour Party's chair, David Hide, went to the public consultation exhibition organised by Berkely Homes and was not impressed. He wrote this letter to the West Sussex County Times, which was printed today.