LETTER: How many more nasty surprises?

Your front-page story (Horsham edition, 25.9.14) revealed that there are plans to build at least 5,000 homes with scope for up to 10,000, on the fields from Warnham station to Capel. Although you report that this would be in place of the North Horsham 2,500-plus, can we believe that?

When Cllr Vickers took over from Cllr Howard in May 2013 (following his sudden departure from the cabinet) Mrs Vickers moved all the meetings of her advisory group (PPAG) into closed session. It has never met in public since. Why?

Holding meetings or part of meetings in secret was against HDC’s own Statement of Community Involvement (SCI), voted by councillors in September 2011.

But the cabinet cabal that runs our local council, tore that policy up and froze out the public (the very people who elect them) from the Gang’s meetings.

My question to Cllr Vickers and deputy leader Helena Croft, who is supposed to represent the town of Horsham and be responsible for public communications, is why was this plan for 10,000 more houses at Warnham and Kingsfold, never discussed in public over the past 18 months?

How many more nasty surprises are there?

Now we know why Cllr Vickers refused to hold any public meetings about the cabinet’s housing plan. If PPAG met in public, we would have known about this secret housing plan.

Horsham just doesn’t have the infrastructure to take a 14,000 urban extension to its north east. We don’t have any democracy at Horsham District Council – just see how they sacked the chairman-elect for speaking out against all these mad plans.

But what we do have, thank goodness, is a free press in the County Times that tells us the news that Cllrs Dawe, Vickers and Helena Croft don’t want us to know.

Well we will be sending them a message in May 2015: ‘Out! Out! Out!’

ANDREW MITCHELL

North Parade, Horsham