26/08/2021 – Press Release - Clair Hall, Strong Themes on Consultation
As appeared in the Mid Sussex Times 28th August 2021
Reading through the Ideas submitted to the Clair Hall Consultation site there are strong themes that recur:
- A hub for the Community
- Boldness of approach
- Positive awareness of location – green benefits of Clair Park
- Commercial opportunities to defray costs
- COVID as a gamechanger, an opportunity for lasting change
Last December, in our submission to the consultation on the Haywards Heath Town Masterplan, Mid Sussex Labour party wrote that “the plan is a missed opportunity that fails to show what is needed for Haywards Heath people…(it)lacks vision, it is inadequate, unambitious and unrepresentative of Haywards Heath people”. We went on to comment on the lack of future-proofing of the plan and the failure to engage adequately with the Green agenda.
These are precisely the issues that are now being advocated by respondents to this consultation, which is only being carried out because of the Conservative’s disastrous and unlawful attempt to close the venue. It is clear that what the residents of Haywards Heath are calling for is not more of the same dreary mix of limited facilities doled out under cover of a lucrative property development, but a vision that draws on the wide variety of community aspirations and interests and makes a bold statement about our town.
Mid Sussex Labour will be making its own submission to the Consultation but for now we wish to applaud the people of Haywards Heath for their imagination and determination to live fuller lives. We thank Haywards Heath Town Council for its endorsement of the consultation and we urge Mid Sussex District Council to do more than pay lip service to the needs of a growing and thriving community. We deserve to be more than a dormitory town; it is time that MSDC woke up!
Murray Crump
On behalf of Mid Sussex Labour party