HDC rejects petition
On 24 February 2021, KRGA submitted a petition “No to Rookwood golf course future development for housing” to the Chairman of Horsham District Council (HDC). The submission was based on a snapshot of the petition on 21 January 2021, at which point 10,290 signatures had been recorded.
With the submission, KRGA provided detailed analysis showing the number of signatures by area for Horsham Town, Horsham Town Neighbours and the rest of Horsham District, together with a capture of all the comments.
Our accompanying letter to HDC explained that KRGA recognised that the petition is not fully in line with the requirements of a formal petition according to HDC process. However, this petition was launched to initially capture the public mood at the time HDC finally went public with their proposals to build on Rookwood golf course in early 2020.
The petition does not relate directly to site allocation or a planning application, but to the political decision to promote the site for development by Horsham District Council (as landowners) to the planning authority, rather than retain its existing use as a golf course, and we therefore asked HDC to accept and fully consider the petition in the spirit of which it was undertaken as it clearly captures the public mood opposing HDCs proposal for Rookwood.
On 9 March 2021, HDC rejected our petition stating, after consideration it had “not been accepted for presentation to full Council because it is not relevant to full Council’s functions; it refers to a development plan, and matters referring to a planning application or a development plan are dealt with elsewhere”.
HDC said “also the petition relates to a policy decision, but the petition on Change.org does not refer to it being against a policy decision, so as far as anyone signing is aware, this petition is against the development and the loss of the golf course rather than Council policy to redevelop”.
On 15 March 2021, KRGA wrote again to the Chairman of HDC expressing surprise and disappointment to the decision to reject the petition. KRGA told HDC we did not understand their reason for rejection as the petition makes no reference to a development plan, a planning application or a policy decision. On this basis we asked the Chairman of HDC to reconsider our petition and requested a full Council debate on Rookwood.
On 1 April 2021, HDC once again rejected our petition on the same grounds stated above.
[The petition, set up using Change.org, remains open and new signatures continue to be recorded on a regular basis. As at 1 April 2021, over 11,500 signatures have been recorded.]