Horsham Labour Party canvassed residents' views about the ongoing saga of the old town hall.
We are in favour of retaining the town hall for the community and do not want to see it become yet another restaurant venue, and are appalled by the way our Tory council has handled our community facility.
Labour party members spoke with dozens of local residents living close to the train station and the park. We didn't come across a single person who was in favour of the council's proposal of installing yet another restaurant instead of retaining a community facility.
A couple of people had no strong views either way but the vast majority of local residents supported the idea of developing an enhanced community venue. Are you listening Councillor Baldwin?
One very good idea that a member of Transition Horsham proposed was to turn the old town hall into a Bill's-style store run by the community for the community. Another person suggested opening up a community post office as it is clear that the current provision within the Carfax is insufficient.
Our campaign co-ordinator, Carol Hayton,has sent this letter into the local paper in support of our position:
Andrew Baldwin accuses the Lib Dems of being economical with the truth (WSCT letters page December 3rd) and then uses statistics that suggest that he is doing exactly the same thing himself.
He counters the claim that the public were ignored when deciding the future of the Town Hall by saying that 76 per cent of respondents to his leaflet agreed that they did not want to spend their hard earned taxpayers money on the renovating the town hall.
What he fails to mention is exactly how many responses he received and, therefore, whether it was 76 percent of 10 or of 1000. The actual number of responses is key to determining how many people actually agreed with Cllr. Baldwin
Cllr. Baldwin also uses the current Tory tactic of claiming that taxpayers do not want their money spent on those things they choose to cut. Let’s face it, no one ever really wants to pay tax and when asked if we want our money spent on anything that we haven’t personally chosen ourselves we will say no, perhaps in the vain hope that we will be able to keep the money. But as Benjamin Franklin said, 'the only things certain in life are death and taxes' and, like it or not, we have to pay.
So perhaps the Tories should take a more honest approach and ask what would we rather have that money spent on. For example; ‘Would you rather have your hard earned money spent on:
Members of Horsham Labour party support the campaign for community use of the town hall, we would also like to see our hard earned council tax spent on much needed services for children and the vulnerable, areas that the Tories have decided to cut. We will be writing to Francis Maude and Cllr Baldwin to let them know.
- Renovating the town hall or on a recycling scheme that leaves a massive hole in the council budget?
- Renovating the town hall or on the vastly expensive pedestrianisation of East street which will no doubt have to be dug up and poorly resurfaced the next time someone has to deal with underground services, as has happened in the Forum?
- Renovating the town hall or on the expense bill for councillors who make decisions you don’t even agree with?
We will keep you posted with their reply.