Dear Editor,

May I welcome your excellent leading article in last week’s edition of the East Grinstead Courier; Government money pot is bitter sweet.

Alas, none of us can have any confidence that the Government will provide the major infrastructure improvements that are essential for our area now, let alone for the future.

Last week I spoke in a debate in the House of Commons on Water Shortages and I took the opportunity to warn the Government that existing and future residents of East Grinstead will not thank them if they find that new homes have been built in a district with huge strains on its social and physical infrastructure.

During the debate I made the following important point to the Minister; “He might know that more houses have been proposed in the Gatwick diamond, incorporating Mid Sussex, Horley, Horsham, Reigate and Crawley, than there are in Milton Keynes. However, the Gatwick diamond does not have the special status that Milton Keynes has been accorded, so the infrastructure development is impossible. It is impossible to build such a great number of houses merely on the basis of developers’ contributions, and without the Government’s support for the infrastructure.”

For eight years I have been lobbying the Government over the need for substantial infrastructure investment for Mid Sussex.

Indeed, back in 2004 during a meeting with the former Minister for Housing and Planning in which my colleagues, Peter Ainsworth and Charles Hendry, discussed our concerns over the impact of the Government’s housing targets on the area, I presented the Minister with an infrastructure audit showing the grave deficit that exists.

Three weeks ago I took part in a delegation with my West Sussex Parliamentary colleagues to see Yvette Cooper MP, Minister for Housing and Planning. The delegation included Cllr Patrick Shanahan, the Leader of MSDC and John Jory, Chief Executive. This was a pretty tense meeting and it was discouraging to hear at first hand the lack of understanding about the great difficulties that we face now in Mid Sussex with the endless demands being made for development. Already our roads, railways and health service are under the most profound pressure, and we lobbied very hard to urge the Government to be more even-handed with its infrastructure investment - a point that I had raised earlier during my speech in the Budget Debate in the House of Commons in March.

On the 17th March I held an infrastructure seminar in East Grinstead when together with local councillors we urged the Head of Infrastructure for the Government Office for the South East to report back to the Secretary of State, that whilst local people accept that some development is necessary, we want it to be proportionate and to scale.

The Government must not only take heed of informed local opinion, such as was so eloquently expressed in your editorial, but also of the recent highly critical reports by the All Party Environmental Audit Select Committee, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee and the Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee on sustainable housing.

As your readers will be aware the draft East Grinstead Action Plan consultation ends on the 3rd July – it is essential that everyone has their say and submits an individual, and detailed response to the planning authority.

Yours sincerely

Nicholas Soames MP