WE OBJECT TO:
The premise of destroying the appeal and character of a contained historic market town of Horsham and of nearby villages, and the heritage landscape here. This site is on the remaining greenfields of Horsham and the strategic gap between Horsham and Crawley. Politicians and companies come and go. See the history of Novartis and Sun Alliance in our town. Towns, villages, quality of life, landscape, environment, our heritage here, as well as the unique appeal of this area which is characteristic of other good communities in UK should remain. There is no proof that this vast development will bring economic growth to our area. We do not need the business park, the crematorium, a supermarket, another train station, schools and more in this area. There are plenty of better sites for housing only.
1) Object to the proposed site having suddenly become preferred instead of Southwater in August 2013. Southwater site is deliverable, prepared with amenities and has other advantages in its proposal. There were no good reasons to change the site. Southwater remains a much better option along with other sites in the district. There are sites at Billinghurst, brownfield sites within Horsham Town, Rookwood Golf Course, Searle’s Yard, Novartis Site, Hurst Road Sites, land adjacent to the railways. See our blog for further info.
The site at North Horsham is the strategic gap between Horsham and Crawley, which is already much diminished, and the remaining greenfields around Horsham. There are many alternative sites. Here are HDC’s previous points which make this site unsuitable:
Click to access CSReviewDocument.pdf
2) Object to locating housing next to business parks, crematoriums, train stations, supermarket and car parks . This is not a pleasant environment – who wants to live next to a business or industrial park, a crematorium, car parks, supermarket, train station?
3) Object to the economic premise here. This will not create economic growth There is no substantiated need for a business or industrial park, supermarket, crematorium, new school buildings for North Horsham, Rusper, Old Holbrook, Warnham, Colgate, Faygate. There are no new employers who have expressed interest in relocation. The proposed business estate is to take 500,000ft of our precious remaining greenfields and a beautiful site. It is irresponsible to waste this land without a sound economic plan and clear benefit to existing residents. Companies all over UK have long ago left for lower taxes and lower wages in China, India and elsewhere. Who will be the employer to fill up 500,000ft here? Microsoft only employs 2500 people in the entire country.
Previous proposal for this site included a new hospital. There is no benefit of any build here now that a hospital is not included. A 500,000 ft ( probably virtually empty!) business estate or industrial park here, a crematorium, a supermarket are not community amenities – and are all undesirable in proximity to housing, as are tunnels, bridges, underpasses. We do not know what else might be included in the proposal at later stages.
4) Object to the lack of information with regards to proposed pedestrian and cycle access and impact of any attempt at this for your neighhbourhood. Do you want your children crossing the A264 in tunnels, underpasses or over bridges daily on their way to school? Object to the impossibility of pleasant, discreet, usable pedestrian and cycle access over the A264. Bridges, tunnels, underpasses, stop lights ( a nightmare for traffic – congestion) are not welcome. Do we want our existing neighbourhoods being brought into proximity of all of the above? There is no need to disfigure the landscape with underpasses or bridge(s), or to cause congestion o the A264 or to encourage children to cross the A264 to go to school. There is a real risk of fatal accidents here.
5) Object to impact on school catchment areas. Do you want to lose access to Millais and Forest and be re-allocated to a new school across the A264? School catchment is known to all parents – it is your nearest school! School catchments will change by default -children are allocated to the nearest school geographically.
We do not expect central government and higher government than HDC to make unique exemptions for us for catchment areas.
6) Object to impact on train services and parking. Do you want to lose fast trains at Littlehaven, to drive to a new station across the A264. Do you want other commuters parking on your street – in front of your door, daily, if the proposed new station is not built by the developer? There are no guarantees or appropriate investigations of the impact of this proposed build on local train services.
7) Object to lack of adequate time given for consultation. Each item should have been given its own lengthy consultation of many weeks – 500,000 business estate, crematorium, school, train station, supermarket. All of this is about to be approved with only 8 weeks to object, 2 weeks the holiday time of mid-to-end August.
8) Object to environmental concerns, pollution, congestion, lack of information from The Environment Agency, lack of appropriate investigations, lack of consideration of noise impact on your residential area.
9) Object to the destruction of a contained historic market town, and nearby historic landscape – what will we leave for future generations?
See also HDC’s own reasons for not building here : https://savehorsham.wordpress.com/hdc-previous-documents-that-site-reasons-against-nhsd/
SAVE HORSHAM! SAY NO! TO CRAWSHAM! 