As someone born and raised in Crawley having lived in the area most of my life, I find the prospect of Horsham District Council dumping up to 10,000 homes right up to our border utterly irresponsible and almost the definition of anti-democratic.

My parents came to Crawley in the 1950’s – it was an exciting time. Families came from bomb strewn London, and could choose a home and a job. For many, the prospect of an inside lavatory and a bathroom was beyond imagining. Pre-war, most had only outside loos and used the bathhouse once a week!

So, Crawley was well planned, delivering all the necessary infrastructure – roads, railways, hospitals, schools, shops, employment etc… and it worked. Crawley has been an incredible success – the economic driving force of West Sussex.

Today, housing need is at comparable levels. And no, it’s not about immigration, it’s about a failure to build sufficient homes over many years to meet the natural population growth as people live longer and housing needs change. We must build more, but that cannot be left to local councils working within a failing planning system. It needs the sort of national or at least regional strategic approach taken in the 1950s.

Crawley people know how a successful town is made; they understand the importance of a secure home. But we are not being asked and they are not listening.

Much is said about NIMBYism. The original residents of Crawley did not hang out the bunting in the 1950s, but good planning saw Crawley prosper. Today housing is being delivered through massive “add on” developments which never provide sufficient infrastructure. They spoil existing communities instead of creating them.

The 1950s model was delivered through New Towns Commissions, not through profit hungry developers. This allowed space for the proper town planning that made Crawley, and the other post war new towns, a success.

Today, Crawley is being surrounded by developments from our NIMBY neighbours. We’ve already taken 600 homes from Mid Sussex up to our southern borders at Pease Pottage and 2,500 from Horsham at Kilnwood Vale. Mid Sussex plans 2,300 more to our east at Copthorne, and Horsham up to 10,000 further to the west of Crawley.

This is a 25% increase in the size of our town – and Crawley people have no say. This is being done to us. It is not our land; we have no seat at the table – no vote, no voice. Our neighbours at Mid Sussex and Horsham are placing their homes right up to our borders and well away from most of their own residents. They are encircling Crawley, cutting off our access to the green spaces that sustain us, flooding our infrastructure with unmet needs like Dr’s, Dentists, Schools, transport services, jobs, water supply, sewage disposal etc, etc.

Our town’s well-planned infrastructure has never been so threatened – instead of learning from history, they are killing the golden goose by surrounding and strangling Crawley.

In the May elections, housing was a key issue and residents voted for change giving Liberal Democrats control of Horsham and Mid Sussex Councils. But will the Liberal Democrat administrations listen? Will they deliver the change people voted for?  Will they give Crawley a voting ‘seat at the table’? Will they listen if Crawley says no, this is the wrong place for this development?

They don’t have to listen to Crawley – but that doesn’t mean they can’t and it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t.

I hope they think again.

Cllr Alison Cornell

WSCC Councillor for Langley Green and Ifield East