Not content with demolishing the Martlets Hall without a replacement, turning down proposals last year to improve the “slab” where the demolition site is, and failing to exercise any control as the freeholder of the lease held by New River Retail to enforce its responsibilities to keep its properties under proper repair, the latest insult to Burgess Hill by Mid Sussex Conservatives is to grab the rates income otherwise due to the Town Council.

Burgess Hill has taken thousands of new houses, not least from the Northern Arc, which although it is outside the current boundary of Burgess Hill, has always been intended to be integral to the town. The District Council’s officers had already proposed this would take place with a boundary review to bring the Northern Arc into the boundary of Burgess Hill from 2023. However, it seems Mid Sussex Conservatives want to prevent this, and voted at a meeting last week to keep the existing boundary whilst still expecting Burgess Hill to put up with all the problems from new housing and its effect on local services such as the increasing congestion of our roads.

Tonight all political parties on the Town Council have come together to condemn this move and a petition has been launched which if 2,000 signatures are obtained will force the District Council to reverse this decision. This will allow the Town Council to fund local town wide services for the new housing. As a Conservative member of the Town Council stated of the District Council’s attitude as “local politics in the worse possible way.“ I urge you to sign the petition which will shortly be available on the Town Council’s website to overturn this perverse decision.