At last week’s council meeting we agreed that owners of long-term empty properties in Crawley should pay a double Council Tax premium a year sooner than they are currently required to, from April 2025.  There are 35 long-term empty properties in Crawley – 26 unoccupied for between two and five years, five between five and 10 years and four properties have been empty for more than 10 years.

We also agreed that second homeowners should have to pay twice as much Council Tax from April 2025, of which there are currently 331 second homes in Crawley.  (This does not affect properties with tenants living in them).

The wider aim is to help boost the supply of properties locally.  But at a time many people can’t afford even one house, those fortunate enough to afford more than one should make a higher contribution.

It is the case that aside from the relatively modest amount that it will raise Crawley Borough Council towards services, around £70,000, West Sussex County Council will get over half a million from the Borough from this additional income.  This is quite the windfall for them.

I believe that this additional money Tory-run West Sussex County Council will receive should be spent on the service area their residents currently consider the highest priority – and that is, quite overwhelmingly, to properly address the dreadful state of the roads in Crawley and across the county.

That’s why I am writing to the County Council Leader, Paul Marshall, to urge him to put all this extra money into a ringfenced fund for potholes repair and road resurfacing to address the manifest deficiencies in road maintenance across the county.

With some other districts in West Sussex having much larger numbers of second homes, this should mean overall many millions of pounds extra available for the county council to spend on this within the next few years.  They should plan ahead, knowing they will be getting this money, so there is a better solution to the state of the local roads which we have all certainly suffered here in Crawley for far too long.

Cllr Michael Jones

Leader, Crawley Borough Council