Related Articles
The matter was the subject of a lively debate during a meeting of Crawley Borough Council on Wednesday (December 17) where Labour and Conservative members disagreed with each other time and again.
The Labour group has been enthusiastically backing the idea of a town council since the idea was tabled earlier this year – but the Conservatives are firmly opposed.
Michael Jones, leader of the council, reported that more than 1,000 people had responded to a recent community governance review consultation into the plans – with around 72 per cent supporting the idea of forming a town council.
While 1,000 people may seem low for a town of more than 118,000 people, it was actually quite a decent response rate when compared to other consultations.
But Conservative councillor for Pound Hill South and Worth Bob Lanzer raised concerns about how many people had actually received the consultation leaflet, which the council spent £6,697 printing and distributing.
With Cllr Jones acknowledging that there had been problems – with Royal Mail admitting “fault” – Cllr Lanzer called for a referendum of the whole town to be held to get a better idea of what people actually think.
He said: “We’re pretty much clueless about who the consultation reached.”
Cllr Jones estimated that a referendum would cost in the region of £120,000 – the same cost as a full election.
The idea of forming a town council came up due to fears that Local Government Reorganisation would leave Crawley residents distanced from their elected representatives.
The reorganisation will see Crawley become part of a larger unitary authority from April 2028, possibly with Horsham and Mid Sussex. This will happen whether or not a town council is formed.
Cllr Jones accused the Conservatives of “grasping at any excuse” to try to stop the community governance review.
He added: “We are doing nothing differently at this council than we would ever do with any piece of policy that we have.
“We’ve been out to consultation, we’ve received a very respectable result – that’s the long and the short of it.
“You cannot make decisions…on the grounds that everyone is fully on board or knows about everything at all times. It’s not practical, it’s not achievable.”
