Crawley Labour party aim to represent resident’s views and wishes whenever they can and to help inform our policy and campaigning we have been running a ‘West of Ifield’ survey since January 2020. This was available to Ifield and Ifield West residents as a freepost survey in early 2020 and one copy was delivered to every household. Although there was a cost incurred in providing Freepost responses this approach was designed to enable residents that do not have access to the internet to respond.

Although the initial survey was targeted at Ifield residents the online survey is available to anyone. Since the original launch, in February 2020, we have started to publicise the survey further afield in Crawley. And since general opposition to the West of Ifield development proposed by Homes England has been increasing we have now had some submissions from outside Crawley.

Thank you to everyone that has completed our survey. If you haven’t let us know your views yet please complete the survey here West of Ifield Survey.

West of Ifield survey response stats:

August 2021 Summary

 The vast majority of responses – around 90% – are in favour of outright opposition to the development. Although this signifies a major body of opposition to the Homes England proposals it is not necessarily surprising given that the people most likely to respond to the survey are those that don’t wish to see the development.

Although only 15 respondents (3%) clearly support the development, around 60 other respondents recognised that they may need to work with Homes England to get the best outcome for Ifield. For some, there was a clear sense of inevitability at some form of development going ahead.

Responses to “What are the main issues for you?”

These numerical responses were reflected in the written comments which clustered in to the following themes;

Traffic/Congestion

Travel time, state of roads, pot holes, road safety, accidents, use of roads as cut throughs, roads too narrow, use of pavements for cycling, lorries, construction traffic, the need for a bypass/relief road. Rusper road was mentioned most often, but also Ifield Drive and one concern about Findon road.

Environment

These were the next most mentioned issues, with mention of green space, wildlife, nature, ancient woodland, climate change and flooding. There were many comments about the unique nature of conservation areas in Ifield.

Health

GP appointments delay was stated by many respondents, concerns that East Surrey Hospital will not cope and Crawley hospital would have to provide more services, and the strain on Mental Health services. There were concerns about air pollution, space to exercise, walk, run, cycle.

Infrastructure generally and schools in particular were mentioned by many.

Homes England

There was a general lack of trust, promises not likely to be kept, and a focus on profit motive. If happening, the need to work with them to reduce impact was recognised. The development was felt to be too big, and needed to contain more affordable housing/Council housing.

Horsham DC

Many comments on the need to use land nearer Horsham, do not want Crawsham, Crawley should have a bigger voice, a feeling of unfairness that Horsham have the say but Crawley will have the impact.