There’s a huge amount of change in the air at the moment. You may have seen that the government has just announced the start of a Sussex-wide consultation on Local Government Reorganisation.
The consultation will seek views on three proposals that include Crawley. Details of the consultation, including how to respond, will be published at shapingwestsussex.org. Please take part.
When we engaged residents and stakeholders in the summer, you told us that by far, your preference was for a new Council covering Crawley, Horsham and Mid-Sussex.
Local Government must remain local and connected to those people it serves. A single county-wide unitary would be unprecedented in scale with only Birmingham or Leeds being of a similar scale. Even on a clear day, Chichester can be 75 minutes’ drive away from Crawley – the same as Southend or Canterbury! That’s why we think it has to be smaller than that to be truly local.
An interesting aspect of this debate so far has been the number of people who tell me that they’ve never heard of local government reorganisation, or the review on whether to have a Town Council, which is also going on.
This is quite frustrating, as I feel that I have often spoken of little else, both in this column, news items and in numerous Council debates.
It does, however, underline a constant battle we have as elected representatives. People have busy lives, other interests, limited time. Sometimes it is difficult to pierce that and reach through. But we will continue to try and spread the word.
I notice Conservative opposition leader Cllr Duncan Crow is making statements discrediting the Town Council consultation because some residents haven’t received a leaflet. The leaflet was never something the council was obliged to do. It was in addition to the usual consultation methods which are online and publicised accordingly.
For those needing a hard copy, aside from a leaflet, the consultation has also gone out in the latest edition of the council’s magazine, Crawley Live, delivered to all local households since 10th November.
It seems to me that the Tories’ latest attack is a tactic to try and question the legitimacy of the responses, so they can justify ignoring the majority view if it does not accord with theirs.
There is still just under a week to get your response in on the Town Council (by 1st December) which can be done at the following link:
https://crawley.gov.uk/council-information/how-council-works/consultation/2025/town-council-crawley
Cllr Michael Jones,
Leader, Crawley Borough Council