Horsham past and present

This is a guest post by our friend Wills, who lives – you guessed it – in Horsham.

We’ve lived in the countryside outside Horsham for 40 years and love the area. But it’s changed substantially over that time and in recent years there has been far too much building work for our liking.

It’s a shame that so much of the countryside is being spoiled by the constant addition of homes, and even in the villages home extensions are springing up to cover gardens and increase the density of building work.

North Horsham is the latest crazy idea of the council and appears on the local plan. Horsham builders are ecstatic of course as they have more work than they can cope with. It’s going to be a really big development of around 3,500 houses, complete with schools, doctor surgeries and even a new railway station – if that ever happens. Of course the promised infrastructure often doesn’t appear at all but it helps to grease the wheels if the council thinks (or chooses to think) that the necessary support package will be in place.

South of Horsham has expanded rapidly too, tearing up hedgerows, trees and meadows so more and more people and cars can clog our roads. We all moan about it and get caught in traffic jams on a daily basis, but still the building continues.

Home remodelling is something of which I certainly approve as much of our housing stock is somewhat old-fashioned, and not in a good way. Some of the work done by local builders who really make a wonderful job of repurposing ugly houses into beautiful homes with open spaces and lots of light.