LETTER: Mysterious size of new centre

The Horsham District Council Project Team have submitted planning application ref DC/16/1844 to their own HDC Planning Department in respect of the new (replacement) District Leisure Centre to be built at Broadbridge Heath.
By The Newsroom
Published 12th Sep 2016, 13:30 BST
Updated 7th Jun 2018, 20:49 BST

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Redevelopment of such sports, leisure and recreation facilities has to follow strict guidelines as laid down in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF); especially paragraph 74, which generally stipulates ‘equivalent or better’ provision.

Also, given the massive housebuilding programmes both underway and planned for Horsham, you would expect the new centre to be significantly bigger, to cope with the ensuing population growth.

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So how do the submitted plans answer these two crucial points?

Well, it appears that the planning consultants contracted by the HDC project team (presumably to make a case for this application to be approved) must have simply forgotten to realise that NPPF 74 applied here and so have (so far) failed to justify that the proposals are compliant with perhaps the most critical planning consideration.

Amazing!

The (comparative) size of the new centre is even more mysterious.

On the one hand we are told in HDC’s own planning application that the building redevelopment results in a net loss of 1,350 sq metres, yet in the consultants’ planning statement they claim that we will have a bigger leisure centre, by 675 sq metres!

Who is trying to fool whom?

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Before this goes to Planning Control North, do ask your district councillor why they think that the new centre complies with NPPF 74 and how a smaller centre (yes it is smaller!) can cope with the demand from more and more future residents.

Sue Kornycky

Cox Green, Rudgwick

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