Shocking U-Turn - Burgess Hill Takes The Houses But Tories Refuse To Give Us The Money!!!

Burgess Hill takes all the houses, but the Conservatives have refused to give us the money! That's the current state of play for the Northern Arc after a sensational Scrutiny Committee meeting at Mid Sussex District Council on Wednesday evening (23rd March) where the Conservatives successfully added an amendment to pause the boundary review until at least 2025.



Currently, the majority of the Northern Arc sits in the parish of Ansty and Staplefield. The plan was always for the boundary to be moved to bring it officially into Burgess Hill to enable the town to financially benefit from all the new residents who will enjoy the town's amenities. The boundary review process was set to be concluded so that from May 2023, the future 3,500 new homes would all fall into Burgess Hill.

Cllr Pete Bradbury (Conservative) - resident of Ansty, tabled the amendment, while holidaying in Spain wilth Cllr Stockwell, stating how the consultation shouldn't take place until people are actually living in the Northern Arc, only then should the question be asked of the new residents if they'd prefer to be living in Ansty or Burgess Hill!


The Green Ticks Of Shame - What Is Their Plan?

Those voting for pausing the boundary review and essentially taking money away from Burgess Hill were:

• Cllr Pete Bradbury (Cuckfield) Conservative
• Cllr Rod Clarke (Haywards Heath) Conservative
• Cllr Sandy Ellis (Haywards Heath) Conservative
• Cllr Jim Knight (Haywards Heath) Conservative
  
• Cllr Anthea Lea (Lindfield) Conservative
• Cllr Michael Pulfer (Haywards Heath) Conservative
• Cllr Samantha Smith (Burgess Hill) Conservative
• Cllr Linda Stockwell (High Weald) Conservative

Those who voted against the amendment were:

• Cllr Peter Chapman (Burgess Hill) Independent
• Cllr Robert Eggleston (Burgess Hill) Lib Dem
• Cllr Christopher Phillips (Copthorne & Worthl) Independent
• Cllr Alex Sparasci (Hassocks) Lib Dem

Readers will be baffled by this turn of events as the Northern Arc has always been the Burgess Hill Northern Arc and is being marketed by Mid Sussex District Council, West Sussex County Council and Homes England as being the case. The whole project is the Burgess Hill 'Growth' area, not the Ansty growth area.

Why didn't Cllr Samantha Smith, a Burgess Hill District Councillor back our town?



The Burgess Hill town-wide strategy was sold to the towns people back in 2011 as 'take the houses, get the financial benefits'. As we know, the £80 million for things like an all singing all dancing Centre for Commuity Sport and a 450-seat theatre turned out to be a thing of fiction, but at least the town could benefit from a healthy bump in the council tax collected to be spent in the town. Now even that has been lost, for the time being anyway.

What is very interesting is that some time before the 2019 local elections, Cllr Pete Bradbury did a big speech during a Mid Sussex Disitrct Council meeting, saying how Ansty would not make a claim for the Northern Arc and the monies as Burgess Hill was the big strategic development as part of the District Plan. What has changed?

This situation will develop very quickly. Keep your eyes on the Burgess Hill Uncovered website and Facebook page for updates!