Crawley Question Time: Potholes, housing and public safety among issues raised

The public meeting – now in its 19th year – was held at the town hall on Wednesday evening (March 20).

Chaired by Mark Dunford, of the Crawley Observer, the panel was made up of Michael Jones, leader of Crawley Borough Council; deputy leader Atif Nawaz; Duncan Crow, county councillor and leader of the opposition at the borough council; Pennie Ford and Fouzia Harrington, of NHS Sussex; and Jake Picknell, Crawley Youth Mayor.

Chief Inspector Ben Starns, of Crawley Police, was unable to attend due to illness.

While by no means packed to the rafters, the back and forth between members of the panel and members of the public was lively and, at times, fiery.

It even saw a couple of people storm out when they were unhappy with what they were being told.

Though their causes were not helped by constant, loud accusations against schools, the police, the councils and the government of cover-ups and passing the buck on everything from bullying and assault to the Covid vaccine.

The town centre was one of the top issues, with one person saying it had ‘no buzz’ – a situation not helped by the announcement that Marks & Spencer was soon to close.

There were calls to encourage independent traders into the town and to expand the market.

Essentially, the meeting attendees were looking for something other than coffee shops and vape stores.

When Queens Square was renovated, the plan was to move the market there.

The current offering has very few stalls and sits at the entrance to the bus station outside HMV and Greggs.

Michael Jones announced that the council was confident that there would be a revamp of the market and it would finally be moved to the square.

He also spoke of a misconception among the public that the council owned all of the shops in town and set the business rates.

That’s not the case. Most units are privately owned and business rates are set by government.

Mr Jones also explained that there was no legal way the council could force the owners of empty shops to fill them.

Claims from some of the public that the town centre had become ‘scary and a no-go zone’ were not recognised by the panel.

But Mr Jones did acknowledge that work had been carried out to stamp down on anti-social behaviour in the Memorial Gardens and asked people to report incidents in any of the town’s parks.

There was frustration among some attendees about the provision for young people in the town.

The recent closure of adventure playgrounds and the decision to start charging for the use of tennis courts in some of the parks were criticised.

And the closure of the town’s Sure Start was described as ‘one of the worst decisions made locally’.

There were calls for more policing of the parks to look out for anti-social behaviour and drug dealing – an issue which some felt had been displaced to the outer areas following work to clean-up town parks.

The issue of potholes reared its frustrating head with one person reporting that they had had to pay £600 to repair damage to their car after hitting one.

Duncan Crow explained how repairs were being carried out and repeated calls for people to report issues via the county council’s website.

On the issue of litter, MrJones said he would look into the idea of asking shops to clear up any rubbish dumped in their immediate area.