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posted 20th December 2017

Question: How does the Trust view the end pf 2017 and the beginning of 2018?

   Answer: The Trust sees this as an era of fresh possibilities for the residents of Horsham because there are signs of new directions which can best be seen in the way the Horsham Repair Cafe took off in September, the interesting developments proposed by the Butterfly Project, the Tablet Ocarina Project is set for a new surge of activity with the main designer from HackHorsham finding himself with more time to take the project further, there has also been an upsurge of interest in the Blue Plaque Project with an increase in the hits on the Trust website worldwide regarding the drive to have a plaque put up in the Swan Walk shopping mall in memory of the men of the 4th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment who built the Capitol Theatre and Cinema in 1923, at the end of the 1st World War, to provide work for out of work bandsmen, and for much needed entertainment for people who had been through very harrowing times.

   For the moment the Trust is taking a well earned rest, but looks forward to watching these projects develop in the ensuing year. In the meantime  may we wish our regular readers a very Happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year; see you in 2018!

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posted 3rd October 2017

Question: What does the Blue Flash Music Trust think about Horsham District Council consultations?

   Answer: There was an interesting letter in the West Sussex County Times (WSCT) complaining about the latest public consultation on the Horsham Town Centre Vision being on-line only. Since the Old Town Hall debacle, we are sceptical of all HDC consultations, in that despite consultation, the recommendations of its own Advisory Group, a feasibility study validated by the University of Liverpool and answering the challenge set in the Council's own commissioned study on tourism (paid for by the taxpayer); the Council did the opposite on a political whim. Furthermore, the handover of the people's Horsham Old Town Hall to Bill's involved the unethical approval of its own planning application in the face of significant objections; plus the unethical payment of the planning fee and plans being paid for by the taxpayer (unknown to them until exposed by the BFMT) for the benefit of Bill's. The selection of Bill's over Gondola's superior bid (worth half a million pounds over the term, of the lease) was also against the rules. On the face of the evidence, does any public consultation or expert report matter in the face of HDC's political arrogance and non-accountability therefore?

   The letter in the WSCT makes a valid point that "... proposals, such as the cinema, have already been given planning permission." This kind of thing is echoed by the Horsham Society Committee in its latest newsletter i.e. "Two important planning applications have been approved by councillors in the face of significant local concerns leaving some to wonder whether there is any point in residents objecting to applications made by, or encouraged by, the Council itself."

   The Council wasted everyone's time, effort and money with consultations, reports etc. and inviting bids from community groups in respect of the Old Town Hall. It also wasted its own time, effort and money and handed this wasteful cost to the taxpayer. It also squandered the greater opportunities identified and evidenced in the consultation process.

   On-line or not, we would not blame the public if they chose not to participate.    

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posted 17th October 2017

Question: How did the first ever Horsham Digital Day go, which aimed to promote the community work of the Blue Flash Music Trust, HackHorsham, Rebel Makers, Code Club and Social Enterprise, under the umbrella of Social Saturday?

   Answer: The event in Horsham was quiet, but significant in that we got our Member of Parliament Jeremy Quin to come along as you can see. Like anything new there had been a lot of preparation in the background; notifying the press, and Social Enterprise etc. Here we see Jeremy in conversation with one of our young digital geeks, and in the background Nik Butler of HackHorsham, and Robert Mayfield of Blue Flash Music Trust. Jeremy saw people of all ages, almost 60 in number all fully engaged in their many digital pursuits. He took some photos of his own, and spent over an hour in conversation. We made the point that we really needed a more accommodating place on a more regular basis. Not bad for our first year with Social Enterprise!

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posted 23rd October 2017

Question: What publicity, if any, came about as a result

of the Horsham Digital Day, 14th October 2017.

   Answer: The Wsct put up this article 19th October 2017 showing the way Jeremy Quin, so magnificently, accepted the invitation by the Trust to this great event.

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posted 26th October 2017

Question: What measures did the Trust take to thank Jeremy Quin for his support of  the Horsham Digital Day?

   Answer: We sent a letter of thanks and photograph to the wsct, and a copy to Jeremy, which we show below;

   Dear Sir, Our sincere thanks to Jeremy Quin, our MP, for accepting our invitation to the Horsham Digital Day at the council offices, Saturday 14th October, when Hack Horsham held its usual monthly meet with other digitally minded groups. The attached photo shows Jeremy taking a very lively interest in proceedings, along with Nik Butler of HackHorsham, and Robert Mayfield of the Blue Flash Music Trust. We were also delighted that he took the time to look at the short videos we sent to him, at his request, showing how the Tablet Ocarina Project, for a blind musician, had developed. He emailed back, “Thank you Robert and what an excellent project.”

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posted 6th November 2017

Question: What does the Trust think about the offshore tax scandal, the sexual

scandal - and the latest Horsham ice-rink scandal?

   Answer: We have good historical reasons to be cynical about them all.

   Offshore tax-

   We are still asking the question as to how an offshore and billionaire backed restaurant i.e. Bill’s Restaurant got into the people’s Horsham Old Town Hall, with the Horsham taxpayer facilitating and paying for the designs and planning fee on behalf of Bill’s. The billionaire in question was ‘non-dom’ Richard Caring, famous for loan/donation (in kind) to both Blair’s Labour Party and then David Cameron’s Conservative Party. We note that last night’s Panorama programme was talking about ‘influence without taxation’ in terms of Lord Ashcroft. In terms of Bill’s billionaire backer Richard Caring, a suitcase full of half- a- million in cash and a Swiss bank also seem to spring to mind for some reason. Stranger still therefore that the original verbal offer of £75,000 from Bill’s for leasing Horsham Old Town Hall, got downgraded to £60,000. Stranger and stranger – Bill’s inferior offer to that of Gondola (Gondola offering £72,500) got bizarrely accepted, costing the Horsham taxpayer half-a-million pounds over the term of the lease. This decision to accept the lesser offer from Bill’s was also delegated to a single Conservative Cabinet Member breaching Council Standing Orders on project limits. The Council were also ‘rumbled’ in that they agreed contract ‘Heads of Terms’ with Bill’s before the decision between Bill’s and Gondola had been made by said Cabinet Member.

    Sexual Harassment-

   Inquiries, investigations and talks of new complaints systems abound at Westminster. However, we have good reason to believe that any justice will be hard to come by. The reasoning is that investigating bodies will overwhelmingly not confront uncompromising bodies or persons with power. If they say “We/ I have done nothing wrong” then in our experience, the  operators of the particular complaints system, will move heaven and earth to produce a report that results in no action being taken. The victim is then facing double the injustice, the injustice of the original crime PLUS the injustice of the result/output from that complaints system.

    Take first the example of the Local Government Ombudsman. You make a statement of complaint and produce the indisputable evidence. When the Council turns out to be uncompromising, the Ombudsman produces a report that doesn’t reference the original agreed statement of compliant, but finds against you on a different statement of complaint – one that can be ‘fudged’ accordingly. Not many cases are deemed worthy of investigation in the first place. However, if an investigation is called and the body or person turns out to be uncompromising, another Ombudsman trick is to pretend or overplay the original investigator going sick, and replace them with a management stooge. This happened with the Legal Ombudsman’s Office too. Even when a High Court Judge says “you were badly advised”, the Legal Ombudsman’s office is arrogant enough to find against you when faced with an uncompromising lawyer. This case also featured subtly changing the originally agreed statement of complaint.  Another trick is to have you comment on a draft report. If you offer further indisputable evidence to refute the  ridiculous claims in the draft - they can manipulate the final report to leave those things out altogether, if they can’t fudge things further.  

    In the case of Horsham Old Town Hall, the Regional Office knew they were being misled by the Council’s claim that the planning application for the building was from an individual, independent, third party. Indeed, a subsequent document leaked to our Trust, absolutely confirmed the agreement between the Council and Bill’s, that the Council would make the application on behalf of Bill’s. To make matters worse - the appointed estate agent (selected by HDC over arguably another stronger bidder from the three required) also happened to be involved in a number of Bill’s deals in other locations - and was further retained and paid for by Horsham District Council as a consultant, in what was a clear conflict of interest. The Regional Office recognised the wrong-doing of HDC acting a s judge and jury in their own application but said, in the face of an uncompromising Council, that they had “no policing function”. HDC similarly misled the High Court by not disclosing the key document, leading to an erroneous judgement by the Court (ruling that the Old Town Hall planning application was indeed made by an independent person). We foolishly accepted the offer of a meeting from HDC in order to avoid an Appeal – only for the Council to withdraw the offer of a meeting once the Appeal period passed. Thus we unjustly ended up paying costs to a thoroughly dishonourable Council.

    The District Auditor saw “nothing unethical” when challenged by an uncompromising HDC committee despite the hard evidence offered to her investigations. One of the District Auditor’s meagre recommendations i.e. that the re-run of bids between Bill’s and another bidder be conducted on a “sealed bids” basis was contemptuously ignored by the Council. The DA did nothing in response to this Council defiance. The District Auditor was appointed and paid for by the Council in this case of course.

    The danger is therefore, that victims of sexual harassment engaging in any new Westminster complaints system, claimed to be independent but paid for by government, will double the pain for most  victims, past, present, or future,  

    The ice-rink- 

   There is an outcry in the local paper that Horsham District Council didn’t charge the ice-rink company for using a large slice of Horsham Park. However, as above with Horsham’s Old Town Hall, it wouldn’t be the first time that HDC prioritised commercial ventures over the loss of public space or assets - and incurred costs to the taxpayer to make this happen.

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posted 14th November 2017

Question: What signs can the Trust see of new beginnings in Horsham?

   Answer: These two pictures show signs of new growth; in the first Richard of the Butterfly Project and Robert of the Blue Flash Music Trust are taking part in the Social Enterprise Day 16th November by featuring the WhoKnew advert of a new partnership in the Butterfly Project location, and the second shows Kevin who was caught finding a wonderful chance to play the piano in the great space by Wilkinsons in Swan Walk. He says it gives him a great chance to relax playing the piano here because it presents such a great opportunity. He was rather concerned that the piano showed signs of needing ‘a bit of TLC’ as he put it. There is one bum note, and it needs some tuning. He would love to get the opportunity to go round the back and check if anything can be done. He was pleased to have his photo taken since music needs to have more of an opportunity to be made more available to people and this piano is a great asset.

    Plus: Further to the Trust’s interest in having a Blue Plaque mounted in Swan Walk in memory of the men of the 4th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment, who built the Capitol Theatre in Horsham in 1923 to provide work for out of work bandsmen after the 1st World War, the Trust has donated a copy of the CD recently made by Steven Isserlis called, The Cello in Wartime, to the Royal British Legion. The reason being that the CD features four pieces of music played on Harry Triggs’ Trench Cello; the sound is wonderful. Harry Triggs was a member of the Royal Sussex Regiment; more can be read about him on our Julian Lloyd Webber page.

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posted 25th November 2017

Question: What of significance  has emerged as a result of the recent Social Saturday that was held in Horsham 14th October 2017?

Answer: As a result of being invited by the Trust to this event held at the council offices ChartWay, our MP Jeremy Quin was able to see at first hand the kind of digital work being undertaken by folks of all ages, from HackHorsham, Blue Flash Music Trust, Rebel Makers, and Code Club, (all from the Horsham area) and as a result gave mention to this endeavour, and to HackHorsham, in his recent speech in the House of Commons. “It is right to focus on the new technologies and I was pleased to get a passing reference into my speech about HackHorsham– a great local endeavour.” This can be heard and seen on Facebook at       http://parliamentlive.tv/…/9851d847-d695-4764-b919-29948da9…  Friday 24th Nov

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posted 28th November 2017

Question: What does the Trust think about Horsham District Council’s

‘Year of Culture 2019’ plans?

   Answer: First of all we welcome the turnaround in terms of commitment to the arts, a key component of HDC’s Year of Culture promotional video. This is far removed from the planned assault on Horsham arts under the past leadership of former Councillor Robert Nye and the demobilisation of Horsham artists under the leadership of Councillor Liz Kitchen back in 2006. It is very welcome that the Council mentions tourism now too – something we have plugged the need for endlessly on this site.

    In our opinion, there are dangers to the ‘grant application’ approach however. What happens if there are not enough credible applications to meet some quite challenging criteria - criteria requiring wide ranging skill sets?

    The criteria can be broadly traced back to a report originally commissioned by the Council in 2003, from Locum Destination Consulting called ‘Tourism Strategy for Horsham District’. This didn’t really go anywhere until the challenges in the report were met by our submission to the Council’s Old Town Hall Advisory Group. This was backed up by a full feasibility study validated by the Faculty of Social & Environmental Studies at the University of Liverpool. Unfortunately, the Council under Councillor Mrs Kitchen’s leadership, reneged on the recommendation to implement this tourism solution back in 2006.

    Key features of our 2006 Horsham Folk Arts Centre plan were:

Targeted markets

    It’s understandable that HDC want to involve as many people in the 2019 Year of Culture, but throwing in ‘everything but the kitchen sink’, is going to make legacy tourism marketing difficult, or even impossible. Are we talking English culture or the cultures of the World for example? To advertise to everyone on such a diverse proposition - and on an ongoing basis - is going to take unlimited channels and unlimited budget. Our Folk Arts Centre plan therefore focused on a more limited national market, those specifically interested in English Culture and it’s links to local rural history etc.  Also, a key international focus was the lucrative American market, advertised affordably through an appropriate partnership.

Making the most of assets

    The Old Town Hall had ideal acoustics and adaptable, medium sized performance space. Its castle like structure was also ideal in appealing to the targeted American market. Sadly, the Horsham Old Town Hall was finally turned into Bill’s restaurant which is featured rather provocatively in the 2019 Year of Culture video. It would still be possible to implement the 2006 Folk Arts Centre plan in another suitable building perhaps, but it would likely be less ideal we think.

A unique proposition  

    There are well-known and lesser-known celebrities in most areas - and many districts and towns across the UK  have got on the festival bandwagon in the last ten years. The 2006 Folk Arts Centre proposition focussed on Horsham’s unique folk history and its links with the great classical composers.

Project management and business expertise, necessary to achieve the vision and its well-defined objectives

    The Folk Arts Centre proposal had one project manager, Martin Jeremiah MBA, who was well connected to the arts and had the necessary business expertise. He was supported by able team members and numerous volunteers that could pull in all the different skills necessary to achieve the vision that was clearly defined in the detailed business plan and feasibility study. It’s not clear to us yet what success looks like for the HDC 2019 ‘Year of Culture’ i.e. what are the defined objectives? It’s also not clear who is accountable for achieving that success. The grant application structure for 2019 could possibly lead to a number of one-off events that do not produce any legacy tourism benefits. There could also be mixed success for those one-off events. Horsham artists and interest groups are excellent at what they do, but they are understandably, not necessarily skilled or motivated towards event logistics and promotion – or even at making detailed grant applications. It’s not currently clear what support HDC might offer in this respect for 2019, or whether the costs of drafting in these skills should be included in the individual grant applications. If the latter, then the budget for 2019 may need to be drastically increased – yet there would still be the task of the overall co-ordination of the project outstanding.

   Nevertheless, 2109 is a welcome step for Horsham District Council to be finally taking. There are more questions than answers at this stage, but we will support the initiative wherever we can.

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posted 4th December 2017

Question: What new local feature has the Trust reckoned to be worthy of note?

Answer: Having worked in the digital area for sometime now the Trust has become increasingly aware of the problems of recycling, and therefore very much welcomes the appearance of a new group called the Horsham Repair Cafe. The cafe meets the first Saturday each month at the Quaker Meeting House in Worthng road. The Trust has found it to be an amazing resource for many things that are needed in our present age in particular how to dispose of items like old electric razors, laptop batteries that are no longer serviceable, and printer cartridges etc,.

   Robert catching up with Gareth Swain; a regular visitor of the Repair Cafe. Gareth has a great insight into recycling as he is the regional manager of SUEZ Recycling and Recovery UK.

   The poster is about the next meeting of the Repair Cafe, 6th January 2018. These will be out on display around the town.

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posted 10th December 2017

Question: What of musical note has the Trust discovered in Horsham this week?

342

posted 14th December 2017

Question: What does the Blue Flash Music Trust think about the latest

articles from the Horsham Society?

   Answer: An interesting article about the Horsham Festival.

     “Despite the success of the 2017 Horsham Festival, it has been turned into a biennial event, with the next year in 2019 to coincide with the [Horsham] Year of Culture. The decision has been driven by difficulty in attracting financial support and the consequential inability to appoint a project manager, seen as an essential requirement if the festival is to grow.”

    Our reaction is that “success of the 2017 Horsham Festival” might be a wishfully subjective claim.  Surely one of the key success criteria of any annual festival (as the Horsham Festival also ran in 2016) - is to become bigger and better year on year, by attracting greater sponsorship and participation. Why did the festival not attract greater financial support in 2017 therefore? It wasn’t clear to us what financial support was given to the 2016 and 2017 festivals beyond printing the programmes and a bit of publicity, courtesy of Horsham District Council, either? Are we simply talking about a withdrawing of support by HDC therefore?

    Furthermore, why has there been difficulty in appointing a project manager for 2018? What happened to the project manager of the last two years and why did he not want to carry on? Was he appointed and paid by HDC to run the 2016 and 2017 festivals? There are more questions than answers in the Horsham Society article.

       We recall that we had an excellent festival project manager in Martin Jeremiah back in September 2006 who delivered the quality Horsham Community Festival with volunteers in such a short space of time, at no cost to the Council. It was such a shame that the Council leadership at the time, then felt so threatened by the community taking the lead  -  and the popular Horsham Music Week was also discontinued by HDC in 2008 for the same reasons. Since HDC so destructively took back control, in spite of its best efforts to make amends on the arts in the town recently, it has failed to inspire participating groups in the same way it seems. Perhaps the Council should give Martin Jeremiah a call?  

    Next update: Comments on another recent Horsham Society article.

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posted 11th January 2018

   Question: Is the Horsham District Council ‘town-centre strategy’ unravelling with the closing of Strada in East Street?

   Answer: Quite possibly. It demonstrates how restaurants come and go over the years and how they are driven by fashion and profitability perhaps. We seem to recall that the leading lights involved in Cote and Bill’s restaurant were involved with Strada once.

   We observed that the HDC strategy of ‘Restaurant Quarter in East Street’ was born out of the dispute surrounding the handing the people’s Old Town Hall (at an explicably ‘knock down’ price) to Bill’s Restaurant. Co-incidentally, Cote (with the same senior people involved) had also recently moved into East Street. Bill’s was said by the Council to be part of this East Street Restaurant Quarter too, when it was really in Market Square. Thus arguably, the ‘Restaurant Quarter’ was more a reaction to public controversy over the Old Town Hall, than a strategy. This is why HDC regularly undermines its own reactive ‘strategies’ we think. As their strategies(?) are not a product of conscious thought in the first place, HDC Councillors don’t seem to see the problem. As an example, there are further restaurants anticipated for the nearby ‘Piries Place’ development, destined to spread the restaurant ‘jam’ even more thinly, while other East Street businesses are finding trading conditions difficult too. In our observation, the Horsham public have always been encouraged to have very short memories; take their eye off the ‘old’; and fix their gaze on the ‘new’. The ‘new’, also doesn’t always materialise in the anticipated form of course, as with the original Broadbridge Heath announcements a few years back. Who also remembers that the Leader of the Council at the time (Mrs Kitchen) once assured the MP (Francis Maude) in writing that the Old Town Hall would be retained for ‘community use’? Consequently, many see HDC as a fickle ‘joke’, as opposed to being the elected guardians of Horsham’s future.

    HDC’s, so called ‘Horsham West End’ strategy(?)  is also under threat with the downturn in home furnishings in recent months, including Christmas and the January sales period (down 2.2%). We anticipated this trend in an update last year. Indeed, Horsham’s Retail strategy(?)’ is increasingly under threat in general from on-line sales, with many stores recently reporting an increase in on line profits to offset a down turn in in-store sales. Again, we have pointed to this threat regularly in the past. All this is bound up with the junkie like ‘Milk the Parking Income ’ strategy(?) which is destined to end in tears as the above factors kick in further. 

   We had plenty of evidence in the past to view the last HDC Chief Executive as a ‘puppet’ of a fickle and dishonourable Council. It remains obvious that, only a sustainable tourism strategy as detailed by our Trust in 2006 will alter the fate of Horsham’s town centre. It remains to be seen whether the new Chief Executive has the courage and principles to deliver the obvious, in the interests of Horsham residents and businesses.

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posted 18th January 2018

Question: What is the latest news on Horsham's East Street

and is there any other news?

   Answer: We hear that Cote have had trouble with their planned re-opening schedule, given their roof. It seems that English Heritage might have been objecting in some way. If true, it sounds strange to us. English Heritage once deemed the stone in-filled arches on Horsham's Grade II Listed Old Town Hall (consistent with being a Court, and to stop people looking in on proceedings) was an historical feature - and therefore needed to stay. However, Bill's restaurant then came along with their taxpayer funded, Council-commissioned, unethically self-approved plans and accompanying 'change of use by the Council; contrary to planning guidance to boot - and English Heritage inexplicably change their mind. The demolished stone arches - but newly glazed arches of what was once the people's Old Town Hall are suddenly a nice feature according to English Heritage. We wondered what the secret of the Council's approach was back then of course? Obviously, Cote didn't use the same. 

   The local press is apparently getting excited about the possibility of the former BHS space in Swan Walk being divided into three and being taken up. No details as yet, but it is rumoured that Next might take up one of the three. The timescales are unclear too, but the BHS space has been vacant for some time now. 

   The local press has been quiet over any impact from the Carillion collapse. We expected the papers to cover this - as we seem to recall that Carillion has been a regular major provider to Horsham District Council in the past -and wonder if there are any hang-over contractual obligations to be considered e.g. maintenance contracts etc. Time will tell we guess.  

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posted 26th January 2018

QUESTION: What do you think about the proposed new Horsham District Council parking charges?

  Answer: Another shameless and irresponsible abuse of power by 'out of town' District Councillors who are continuing to blatantly feather their own rural nests. Strong words perhaps, but easily argued.

   We featured how the Council undermines its own strategies in a recent update. Here is a little quote from the intended THREE YEAR parking strategy in 2015/16.

   “Theme 1 Economic Development - Develop and deliver the Horsham Town Vision. This will include:  Develop an improvement action plan to cover all HDC Town Centre car parks. Increase visitor use and dwell time in car parks."

   So how are parking charges, at sometimes double those in Mid Sussex towns e.g. Burgess Hill and East Sussex, supposed to support that strategy? How will the new charges help to encourage visitor use? How will the new charges encourage to dwell in the town longer? Or has the strategy now been officially abandoned? The upshot is of course, that tough trading conditions in the town centre will become even tougher for the towns businesses. The vulnerability of the so-called parking strategy is also demonstrated in the fact that season tickets represent just about a sixth of the overall parking income. With the Council's ever-increasing, long-term, junkie-like dependence on parking income to balance the books, any downturn in visitor and ordinary resident shopper use might have serious implications for Council finances and ultimately, the taxpayer. If current social trends continue, this is an accident waiting to happen. The ratio of season ticket holders (many of those forced to park at exorbitant prices due to their work) arguably helps to demonstrate the alleged weakness of the town centre in terms of employment these days too. 

   The Council cabinet member for the local economy (and councillor for Billingshurst and Shipley) Gordon Lindsay said in the local press "Approving  the rural car park improvement plan will allow us to progress with the enhancements to rural car parks that we agreed when the Annual Parking Disc Scheme was introduced last year." We are not currently sure what improvements are to be made to the rural car parks and how much they will cost. However, if the press figure of a possible extra £150,000 per year from the new charges in the town is to be believed, then the parking golden-goose is getting a bit tired of laying it seems. 

   However, the councillor for Billingshurst and Shipley thus speaks with refreshing honesty. According to HDC's website, under the Annual Parking Disc Scheme you can park in Billingshurst (co-incidentally his own patch) and other rural sites at Henfield, Pulborough, Steyning & Storrington patches for just 23 pence per week. In Horsham town centre it can cost you £1.20 an hour. In our view therefore, the Council is still following an unwritten, but fairly obvious strategy of increasingly bleeding the town centre in order to further feed the rural rich. 

   This unwritten strategy appears to go back eleven years or so, when for example, the £185,000 reserved for the people's Old Town Hall was released back into general funds and a generous grant was made to a rural village hall without due process. Even worse, Horsham Old Town Hall (the town centre's village hall) was turned over to Bill's restaurant at taxpayer's expense. Worse still, the townspeople had maintained the Old Town Hall through the hated 'town tax', a form of taxation without representation, in he fact that an 'out of town' council denied the town the opportunity to choose a Parish or town Council (when the out-of-town councillors hypocritically, largely enjoyed their own Parish Councils to boot). 

   The exception, also enjoying the Annual Parking Disc Scheme is Roffey (although not town centre as such), but it's perhaps not really an exception. Roffey is now also represented by four councillors from the ruling party.

   We have always argued that these blatant abuses of political clout will only be solved by a proper devolving of power from a shameless and self-serving 'out-of-town' HDC to Parish and/or Town Councils. As the out-of-town majority of HDC councillors have, and are still clinging on to disproportionate power and denying this right; a proper democratic structure can only be imposed from above. We believe that when such a democratic and truly representative structure is in place - and only then - Horsham town can haul itself up and avoid a certain, metaphorical death.

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posted 1st February 2018

  Question: What do you think of the latest price rise of the West Sussex County Times?

   Answer: It’s a difficult environment for the printed press, both local and national, as we have said before – so pretty inevitable really. There was an interesting letter this week though, broadly about the lack of opposition making for an unhealthy democracy. 

    To us, the letter misses a few points however.

    Regulators and auditors are unfortunately trusted by the public until the individuals affected are bitten on the bum by that ineffectiveness. Look at the collapse of Carillion lately. People are wringing their hands and asking “Where were the independent auditors and regulators in all this?” 

   As we have said before, the word independent is misused because he who pays the piper calls the tune. Regulators are also reluctant to take action against an intransigent body no matter how out of control they are. After the British Home Stores pension fund got raided with subsequent collapse, did the regulators not naturally check out other big pension fund deficits, particularly if they were into big public sector contracts? 

   Recently, the BBC’s  auditors produced their so called ‘independent’ report that laughably concluded no gender bias in BBC pay (even there was an obvious yawning gulf between men and women’s pay for the same jobs). 

   So it was with the Horsham Olds Town Hall and the Audit Commission. Yes, Horsham District Council (HDC) was way out of order and the allegations were well proven. However, faced with an intransigent HDC they backed off. Why? Because the audit and investigations were paid for by HDC (and ultimately the taxpayer). Any criticism of HDC might lead to the Audit Commission no longer being commissioned with the Council’s annual audit and it being passed over to a private firm. 

   Worse still the Commission said to us “You always have a democratic option”. This was the desperate refuge of scoundrels we think. How does an individual or small local charity challenge a Council that has the funds of a reluctant taxpayer at its disposal, including the ability to silence or certainly influence the local press by dangling the statutory public advertising carrot? How does an individual take on the resources of a political party that will play down wrongdoing of their Councillors as far as possible in order to protect the reputation of that party and remain elected, particularly when they have such a huge majority? 

   Realistically, there is no democratic recourse in this area and you can’t look to the auditors and regulators either. The three Lib Dem Councillors are barely heard in our view. Indeed, we once witnessed the Lib Dem Chair of Scrutiny Committee get up to give his report to Council and the vast majority of the rest of the Council got up and vacated the Council Chamber to get a coffee.

    No, the key point missed by the letter is, as we mentioned in the previous update - the improper democratic structure of Horsham District – where the rural majority feather their own nest while bleeding the town. This rural majority also cynically deny the townspeople the right to form their own Parish Councils (even when they enjoy their own rural Parish Councils) and/or, deny a Horsham Town Council too. In the current Horsham District Council setup therefore, no amount of opposition, no matter how vocal is going to make a difference. No exposing of Council wrongdoing is going to make a difference either (please see above about auditors and regulators). 

   The only way forward is for the Horsham townspeople to rise up and demand the right to manage their own affairs in a cost-effective, new democratic model under a unitary County Council. In the meantime however, out-of-town Horsham District councillors will do all they can to cling on to disproportionate power and look after their own at the expense of Horsham town.  

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posted 19th February 2018

Question: What does the Blue Flash Music Trust think about the latest Horsham District Council secrecy?

   Answer: Congratulations to the person that won the Information Commissioner’s ruling against HDC on the North Horsham Development. This is quite a breakthrough as in our experience, the Council has long-argued the reason of "commercial sensitivity" for the non-disclosure of information in the past, when this was clearly not the case. This latest revelation will therefore be the tip of the iceberg. What about the infrastructure changes (e.g. road developments) to do with the North Horsham Development for example? 

   Following this successful Information Commissioner ruling, we will now be able to revisit the Blue Flash Music Trust's Information Requests of the past e.g. what were the details of the scoring sheets between Bill's restaurant and W J King on the second bidding round for Horsham's Old Town Hall? We already knew that the first bidding round between Bill's (with its offshore backers) and Gondola was 'fiddled' in some way because Gondola offered considerably more.  We also discovered that contract 'Heads of Terms' was being negotiated with Bill's even before the decision was allegedly made by the Cabinet Member. Delegation to a single Cabinet member was further disallowed under the Council's standing orders for being over the project limits. And much more! For prising such hidden information of unethical behaviour out of HDC the Council branded us as "vexatious" to the Information Commissioner.

   We also recently noted the hypocrisy of some politicians nationally, complaining about a Mr Soros (a non-dom for tax purposes) funding a Brexit 'remain' campaign (not even funding a political party). The argument went that a non-dom was influencing British politics. However, Richard Caring (the non-dom billionaire backer of Bill's restaurant in Horsham and elsewhere) contributed both to Tony Blair's Labour (or was it a huge loan?) and then David Cameron's Conservatives. There is no suggestion that Mr Caring influenced Horsham District Council in any way over the Old Town Hall, but the Horsham public has still to discover what influence was actually applied. Why otherwise did Bill's verbal offer of £75,000 per annum (as reported by the agent to HDC), become £60,000? Why was this offer accepted over Gondola's £72,500, costing the Horsham taxpayer half-a-million pounds over the term of the lease? And many more questions to be answered too.

   In spite of the latest ruling by the Information Commissioner, don't expect the opening of the HDC 'can of worms' to be easy!!  

350

posted 5th March 2018

Question: What do you think about the Horsham Society newsletter getting 'hot under the collar' about the Piries Place car park plans?

   Answer: The Horsham Society Newsletter made some valid points of course:- "The [HDC] planning committee has approved a five storey monstrosity ..." "This is our own council's plan to redevelop its own car park ...." "This case also highlights the potential for a perceived lack of transparency that can arise when a council is both developer and planning authority. There is a strong argument for a change in the law to transfer the planning responsibility for such applications to another authority such as the county council."

   Mmm. Where have we seen this before? Horsham District Council produced its own plans for Horsham's Old Town Hall to become a [Bill's] restaurant. It made the taxpayer pay for the designs and the planning fee - and then handed the plans onto Bill's as agreed in the lease. Bill's selection was also highly dubious, breaking council rules. Also, under the planning rules at the time the plans had to be referred to the Regional Office. The Council falsely claimed to the Regional Office that this was an individual application - and so was not under the jurisdiction of the Regional Office. The Blue Flash Music Trust alerted the Regional Office to the fact that this was the council’s own plans [as announced by the Chairman of the planning committee], but submitted under the name of Mr Josh Leon. The person concerned was actually retained by the Council as a consultant at taxpayer's expense, as well as being a representative of a so-called independent agent for the Council [after a dubious bidding outcome] from Davis Coffer Lyons. Davis Coffer Lyons was also acting in a number of other cases for Bill's such as their Covent Garden venture.

   The Regional Office recognised all of this but said they could do nothing about it as they "have no policing function". When this Trust takes the issue to the High Court, the Regional Office is therefore generous to us. Unfortunately, the Council subsequently perverts the course of justice and fails to disclose their own application for the Old Town Hall as later leaked to us in the lease. It leads to an erroneous High Court judgement of Mr Josh Leon being a lone applicant. The Council contact our trust and offer a meeting, presumably fearing a successful Appeal. We accept the meeting as we see no benefit in defeating the Council on Appeal [as we feel the resultant bad feeling will not lead to us being granted the Old Town Hall for the recommended tourist solution that was originally recommended by their own committee]. When the appeal window is closed however, the Council withdraws the meeting offer. We unjustly have to pay £884 costs as a result.

   The lessons for the Horsham Society are simple therefore:- Rather than it being a "perceived lack of transparency when a council is both developer and planning authority", you cannot stop a council

[particularly one that behaves like HDC] getting away with their denial to the various authorities, even if it is obvious. The Society's proposed transfer to "another body" in such circumstances, i.e. where the council is making its own application, is therefore pointless.

   An arrogant and intransigent council such as HDC can tear up planning laws [even on a Grade II Listed Building such as the Old Town Hall] and build "monstrosity"s at will.

   Thirdly, the Horsham Society should have stood full square with the Trust over the Old Town Hall issue in the past in order to avoid 'their chickens coming home to roost'. Given HDC's shameful behaviour over the Old Town Hall, we should not have been left to bravely fight alone. We still believe that if the Horsham Society, the local press and the Lib Dems had similarly stood against the council back then, or even since then [on the Old Town Hall issue], we would have a much more differently behaving Council, both now and in the future.

351

posted 8th March 2018

Question: How do you see the future of the restaurant quarter in Horsham's East Street and the future of Bill's in the Old Town Hall?

   Answer: As we anticipated in our updates on this site years ago, there are signs that the 'middle' restaurant market (where Bill's is pitched) is creaking. Since Byron and Jamie's Italian difficulties, and even though the Horsham Prezzo has been retained, the overall trend for the market is still noticeable. There have been plenty of food industry articles talking about the saturation of the increasingly challenging restaurant market. It doesn't bode well for HDC's much heralded 'restaurant quarter' in our view.

   There was also a good article written about Pizza Express and its differentiation via hosting live music recently. They argued that you needed to do something different in a saturated market - and hence they were expanding their musical offerings.

   This is just one of the ideas that we put forward in our successful Old Town Hall bid back in 2006 i.e. combining dining with restaurant and theatre. Unfortunately our bid, as approved by the Old Town Hall Advisory Committee, was inexplicably and irrationally trumped by the HDC Cabinet at the last minute. Even if you ignore the wider tourism benefits of our own bid, the fact that Bill's won over Gondola by offering considerably less (£12,500 per annum less) is still unexplained. This equates to a half a million pound loss to the taxpayer over the term of the lease.

   It is also unexplained how Bill's original verbal offer conveyed by Davis Coffer Lyons of £75,000 became reduced to £60,000. Furthermore, it's still not clear why contract 'Heads of Terms' were being negotiated by HDC with Bill's, even before the decision between Bill's and Gondola was officially made.

   We are now looking into the subsequent decision between Bill's and W J King Ltd for the Old Town Hall. Given the controversy, the District Auditor advised the Council to conduct sealed bids re. the latter. She (the District Auditor at the time) was ignored. Nevertheless, details of the bid between Bill's and W J King currently remain HDC's secret.  

352

posted 12th March 2019

Question: What do you think are the reasons the middle market restaurant sector might be declining?

   Answer: Please see previous updates. However, one thing we haven't mentioned before is that due to the factors that we have already mentioned - increased imported food costs from the falling exchange rate after Brexit, increased competition (particularly from 'street food' with less fixed costs like rent and rates), squeeze on living standards etc. - many middle market restaurants have responded by cutting variable costs towards the bone. These costs are generally ingredients costs and wage costs.

   With ingredients you can use less of them altogether, or use less of the relatively expensive ingredients and more of the cheaper ones. For example, you might find your spaghetti bolognaise increasingly having less meat in it and then be swimming in tomato sauce. Or you can use less quality (and therefore cheaper) ingredients e.g. less expensive beef mince with a higher fat content. If so, either way, the quality of the customers dining experience will be adversely affected.

   Secondly, you can cut staff costs as much as possible by having less staff. However this increases wait times until service - and in an increasingly busy world, many customers won't stand for this. Many restaurant companies also rely on immigration for good staff, but less of these are available since the Brexit vote (not that we have any particular view on Brexit). Good restaurant staff have to be trained of course, but there may be fewer experienced staff with any spare capacity to train them perhaps. You may want to save money by doing less training, zero hours or low guaranteed hours contracts, but this means that staff turnover may be high. In the extreme, you may want to skimp on the management, particularly during busy evenings and weekends (much easier to take time off when you are nominally in charge) and leave a band of minimum wage sixteen year olds to struggle with the demand. Overworked, young and inexperienced, and/or poorly skilled, poorly paid and poorly motivated staff leads to more mistakes, longer waiting times and ultimately, hostile complaints (even more dangerous since the rise of the internet) - as again, the customers dining experience will be adversely affected. If the above is the case, with perceived declining value for money, the once special 'eating out' treat for the masses will not happen as often.

   We feel it's a different 'feast of fortune' now. When the market was expanding, financiers were used to taking on a restaurant project, building the brand and then selling it on at a profit - perhaps after four or five years or so. However, with a contracting market owners have been unable to move things on in the same way; perhaps locked in a spiral of cost cutting unless they are fortunate to be differentiated in some other profitable way.

   One's thing for certain however, if customer experience declines, the middle market restaurant sector will eventually, effectively eat itself! 

353

posted 21st March 2018

Question: What do you think about the Horsham District Council's

latest tourism thinking?

   Answer: On the basis of history, wishful thinking! Apparently, HDC organised the first Horsham District Tourism Economy Forum in November last year, with the aim of creating a new Horsham District Visitor Economy Partnership. We have seen these grandly titled, HDC inspired 'quangos' before e.g. the Horsham economic development partnership, initially chaired by editor in chief of the West Sussex County Times. It was so ineffectual that we can't even remember it's official title. In fact, this strategy of announcing a 'smokescreen' quango a well worn theme by HDC i.e. propose a quango in the local press and give it an impressive sounding name to make it look like you are doing something on the subject. Involve a few local businesses or other local groups so that you can eventually absolve the lack of further meaningful HDC input and pass on responsibility to others when things don't get off of the ground. In practice, HDC needn't worry however. The press and public quickly forget these quangos ever existed - and so nobody is held to account for the lack of action anyway. We are confident therefore that this one will go the same way. With a lack of ongoing competent leadership by the Council, along with Council resources and money to service the administrative needs and aspirations of the group etc - the 'day job' for the involved businesses will get in the way - and the initiative is likely to quickly fizzle out just as before.

   No matter how the Council has squirmed on tourism over the years, there is no substitute for the bespoke tourism solution proposed by our Trust on the basis of the Locum Destination Consulting Tourism report for HDC of 2003 - and as approved by the Council's own Old Town Hall Advisory Group after a bidding process in 2006. This tourism plan was also validated by the Faculty of Social and Environmental Studies at the University of Liverpool before the then Leader of the Council irrationally scuppered it. 

   Since then, HDC has tried to paper over the cracks with other 'strategies' (arguably co-incidental happenings at the hands of others) such as the 'restaurant strategy' and the 'retail strategy'. We covered the challenges now facing restaurants recently. As large retailers such as John Lewis are also facing challenging market conditions at the moment - and with all retailers struggling with the ongoing rise of internet shopping, HDC simply looks to be running scared with this latest announcement of a proposed Horsham District Economy Partnership. If we ever hear of any achievements by this group we'll let you know.

354

posted 12th April 2018

Question : What are the risks to Horsham District Council's restaurant strategy?

   Answer : We've outlined these risks in detail in our updates recently - and indeed - over many years. But don't just take our word for it. There was a good piece by the BBC's Matt Albright on 'The One Show' on Tuesday 10th April on how people are falling out of love with chain restaurants and how many chains have been closing branches recently. Bill's (currently occupying the people's Old Town Hall in Horsham) wasn't specifically mentioned, but photographs of another Bill's branch was featured as an example chain.

   An interview with a spokeswoman from the British Retail Consortium spoke from the same song sheet on likely future prospects as us (so to speak) too. We'll cover more on this subject on Monday. In the meantime, we wish an excellent (better weather) weekend to our readers.

355

posted 16th April 2018

Question: Are taxpayers still getting the quoted £60,000 per annum from Bill’s for occupying Horsham Old Town Hall, and was the follow-up selection of Bill’s over W J King fair and reasonable?

   Answer: We don’t know. We learned a lot from original FOI Requests such as that Bill’s was unethically selected over Gondola (the latter offering £12,250 a year more), the fact that Bill’s reneged on its original verbal offer of £75,000 (as reported by the agent to HDC), that the Council unethically had the taxpayer pay for the planning fee and plans before handing them over to Bill’s, and lots more. All of our FOI requests back then, revealed answers in the public interest, both in terms of democratic accountability, and in the in the interests of other local businesses who were not benefitting from these unexplained subsidies to Bill’s from the Council. However, the Council’s response was to start refusing requests on the grounds that we were being vexatious. We have thus patiently waited a number of years to make another FOI request and answer the Question above.

356

posted 9th May 2018

Question: How is the Trust’s previously reported

Freedom of Information (FOI) Request going?

   Answer: Yes, we apologise for the delay in updating people on progress, but it took Horsham District Council quite a while (more than the statutory 20 days) to respond, This was after a reminder by us that the normal time had expired. It was a curious response as well. The Information Governance Team had reportedly been looking for information ‘off site’ to explain the delay (possibly the detailed procurement scoring between W J King Ltd and Bill’s Restaurant), but then only provided Council reports and minutes, which were presumably readily available on site. There was no original indication from the Governance team that our request would be substantially refused either. It’s therefore a possibility we think, that person or persons currently unknown, have interfered with this request and might be influencing the staff in the wrong direction.
    We asked for:

1) The evaluation matrix, scores and other documents relating to the Horsham Old Town Hall decision between Bill’s Restaurant and W. J. King when bidding for the Old Town Hall

    Given the experience of the original Bill’s versus Gondola bid and subsequent District Auditor investigations, whereby the Council bizarrely opted for £60,000 per annum from Bill’s instead of £72,500 per annum from Gondola, the public surely have a right to know that W J King versus Bill’s was scored objectively in order to reach the overall scores - and that Councillors were not misled in their decision of Bill’s over W J King Ltd by any non-objective overall scoring. Hence our request for the detailed scores. The public interest is served because if companies bidding for taxpayer funded, Council contracts cannot be confident of a fair process they will not bid, or they compensate the risk with a higher mark-up, or lesser quality offer. Competition for contracts being less, will also drive up prices for the taxpayer.

   Although there is a precedent for release of the scoring as with Bill’s versus Gondola, the Council don’t seem to want to give up the scores between W J King and Bill’s subsequently. Under FOI law, the Council can’t withhold the information simply because it may be embarrassing for them.

2) Details of any rent reviews for the Old Town Hall since Bill’s opened and the annual rent to be received from Bill’s this financial year 2017/18

    There has been a recent rent review to reset Bill’s annual rent, but the Council don’t seem to want to provide details of the process, the people involved, or the result. The public need to know that due process was followed, particularly after the District Auditor previously mentioned the vulnerability of the Council’s processes. We have seen no evidence that these processes have got any better over the years. The public would certainly have a right to know if they were not actually getting the much heralded £60,000 per annum for the Old Town Hall as well. The public only found out that they could have had £12,500 per annum more under FOI subsequently of course. They also found out that the assessed market value was £75,000 at the time and that Bill’s had originally made a verbal offer of £75,000 under FOI. There has never been any explanation as to why this original offer was so significantly reduced – and even more bizarrely – accepted by the Council.

   Other businesses in Horsham (an integral part of the public) therefore have a public interest in knowing whether the Council is continuing to promote unfair competition in the area, not least, by favouring and subsidising Bill’s with, in effect, public money and public assets as in the past e.g. taxpayer funded plans and planning fees.

   Given the content of the FOI Act and the overwhelming argument for the release of the above information, we have made a detailed appeal to Horsham District  Council to reconsider their position. This can take up to 20 days. Given such a weight of argument it would seem a folly for HDC to push things to the Information Commissioner once more, particularly not long after the Liberty revelations teased out by another member of the public.

   However, we’ll see.

357

posted 31st May 2018

Question: What does the Trust think about the closure of Wabi in

Horsham's East Street?

   Answer: The closure and the takeover by Brewhouse & Kitchen somewhat bucks the current market trend. Recent developments have seen the chains struggling and smaller, specialist operators (particularly 'world food') taking up the slack (not that Brewhouse & Kitchen is a chain,[yet?]).

   It's bad news for Bill's occupying the people's Old Town Hall, who will be facing increased competition in a similar 'space' we feel. Cote are said to be re-opening in Horsham's East Street in late summer in order to soften the recent blows to the Council's 'eat street', but some have expressed doubts about this announcement. We are not sure of any current tie up, but Cote and Bill's were certainly intertwined in the form of top managers Chris Beniens and Andy Bassadone in the early days. It may be that Cote will pull out of Horsham altogether in favour of propping up Bill's perhaps. These two managers were formerly involved in Strada who pulled out of the town recently as well.

   It seems likely to us that Horsham District Council (HDC) is continuing to unfairly prop up Bill's too.

   The Council haven't yet answered our Freedom of Interest appeal (after initial refusal) on how much rent Bill's is paying after the recent rent review, or whether the review was conducted via due process in order to produce a fair, current market rent. It therefore seems likely to us that the rent has been unfairly reduced further (having started at some £15,000 less than market value in the first place); unfair to other businesses in the area. That's the trouble when the Council acts unethically in such a high profile manner as they have done in the past over the Old Town Hall of course. In short, we think that by perhaps threatening to walk away from Horsham, Bill's now has HDC by the proverbial 'balls' - and is probably squeezing quite hard too!

   The Council have also recently refused to give us the criteria and scorings between W J King and Bill's, even though the bids are now 5 years old. However, details of the submissions for the Old Town Hall marketing agent procurement process was given to us at the time under FOI. Carr Priddle looked to be the best bid as far as the Horsham taxpayer was concerned, but Davis Coffer Lyons [DCL] (involved in other Bill's deals) were selected by HDC. The Council even retained a Mr. Leon from DCL as a consultant at taxpayers' expense too. Additionally, we were given the details of Bill's versus Gondola at the time under FOI. Once more, Gondola were by far the best bid for the taxpayer, but Bill's was bizarrely selected by HDC. How much worse must the details of Bill's versus W J King be, if the Council won't give us those details 5 years later therefore?

   We'll have further news on this FOI request soon.

358

posted 14th June 2018
Question: How are things progressing with the Tablet Ocarina Project?

   Answer: There has been a lot of activity in this area researching how a blind person likes things to be set out. This, until now had not been appreciated; for example space is of major significance, so that ‘the reader’ can feel the start, the note itself and then the break before the next note. In the case of a sighted person all the information can be taken in at one glance, and the closeness of the text etc can make things all the more understandable. Closeness does away with the space a non sighted person is looking for with their fingers.

   James Wilson suggested using Wikki Stix, developed by the RNIB, and here is a piece of ocarina music by James where he can easily ‘finger-read’ the music with the red Wikki Stix.

   Grant Laurenson, who took the digital side of the TOP a long way forward, as can be seen in the video on the TOP page, has decided to hand over the result of his work to the Trust, so that members of HackHorsham have an opportunity to develop things further.

359

posted 9th July 2018

Question: What are the details of the latest cover up by Horsham District Council?

   Answer: Some months ago now we put in a Freedom of Information Request on Horsham’s Old Town Hall, covering two points:

   1) The completed evaluation matrix, scores and other documents relating to Bills versus W J King. The public needs to be satisfied that the evaluation was conducted and reported to Councillors fairly (unlike Bill’s versus Gondola previously).

   2) Details of any rent review for the Old Town Hall (e-mails, meeting minutes etc.) to show that due process has been conducted and what revised rent for Bill’s was concluded.

   Contrary to the assertions of the new CEO (Chief Executive) of HDC in the West Sussex County Times, the Council couldn't meet the 20 day limit to provide the information. On a reminder from us HDC, in apparent about turn, refused to disclose the information we asked for. We subsequently requested an internal review of the decision according to FOI procedure, to which they said they would respond within 20 days. They couldn't achieve this deadline either. Now the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has given HDC ten days to respond and warned the Council they could be fined if they persist in not meeting the set dates.

   The Council have been all over the place on this FOI request. First HDC argued such nonsense as revealing Bills new revised rent would threaten the commercial interests of the Council. However, disclosure would surely beneficially signal to other potential tenants what the latest, recently reviewed market rent (and the relevant market drivers) for Council assets are. If there is any truly commercially sensitive information in particular e-mails, or other representations from Bills towards the recently conducted rent review, the Council could easily seek to justify the redaction of certain text or figures in these documents. There is also the precedent of HDC revealing that Bills rent was £60,000 per annum under FOI before (although some £15,000 below the original 2005 valuation).

   Since us requesting the internal review of the handling of our latest request, the Council informed us that they were of the view that the information requested was commercially sensitive and that they were contacting Bills restaurant.

   Four questions arise from this:

   1) Why are HDC introducing a new reason for non-disclosure, when they are supposed to be reviewing their original Council stance i.e. threatening the commercial interests of the HDC was the original reason given?

   2) If (a big if) Billís commercial interests are being threatened in their view, why did HDC not want to contact W J King similarly? Surely, they would both have been affected similarly.

   3) How can anyone sensibly argue a commercial threat to Billís or W J King, if the information is some six years old? We also seem to recall that those dealing with HDC on procurement are routinely informed of the prospect of possible FOI requests under the Councils standing orders. Furthermore, there is the long-standing precedent of the Council similarly releasing Billís v Gondola details within a few months of the decision.

   4) Who at the Council concluded that the information was commercially sensitive to Bills (unlikely to be the Information Governance Team we think) before the internal review had seemingly been conducted?

   The analysis is simple. Because the Council has acted so unethically over the Old Town Hall in the past, Bills can threaten to blow the whistle; and threaten to walk away. That is why the Bills tail is still wagging the Council dog and it all has to stop in the interests of the Horsham taxpayer. Thus, we believe the only way out for the Council in order to resolve Bills undue leverage is:

   1) To hold an HDC commissioned public inquiry into Council behaviour over the Old Town Hall. We have accumulated many facts that we can contribute to the inquiry demonstrating that certain Council behaviour was proverbially; as bent as a nine-bob note (for those familiar with old money). Such an inquiry can put the circumstances and those responsible into the open via its report, make a public apology and recommend the compensation of those wronged. Once things are in the open in this way, Bills will have no hold.

   2) Grant a publicly announced immunity to those Council employees previously caught up, unwillingly in the Old Town Hall scandal (which also applies to the current Information Governance team it seems). These employees must be free to testify to such an inquiry without continued fear of reprisal from elected members influence. 

   The Council response to our internal review request should be with us soon.

360

posted 9th August 2018

Question: What do you think about the recent controversy surrounding Horsham District Council’s secrecy?

   Answer: There is no doubt about this secrecy in our recent experience. The Council are a metaphorical million miles away from the claims made in their Annual Governance statement re. transparency and the statements made by their new Chief Executive in the local press about the Freedom of Information route. Back in March, under freedom of Information we asked for :-

1) The evaluation matrix, scores and other documents relating to the Horsham Old Town hall decision between Bill's Restaurant and W. J. King when bidding for the Old Town Hall.

   After the 20 days went by we reminded the Information Governance team who apologised and said that they had to retrieve the information from offsite. Eventually, this part of the request was only partially met by the Council on 27th April 2018 in that it provided us with a summary report to Council that was already in the public domain and would have been very much available at the Council offices we think. Logic sensibly dictates that for there to be a summary report, there must have been Invitations To Tender by the Council and documents received in accordance with the ITT from Bill's Restaurant and W J King Ltd. We have still not been provided with those documents as requested under “other documents”.

   Following our request for an internal review to the Council and a strong letter from the Information Commissioners Office urging HDC to respond (having widely missed another 20 day deadline), we received the following e-mail from the Council:-

From: FOI <FOI@horsham.gov.uk>

Date: 3 July 2018 at 15:38:52 BST

Subject: RE Review and ICO Complaint - Bills restaurant/Horsham old town hall HDCIR:2331

RE – Your complaint to the ICO:Case Reference Number FS50754836

   Dear Mr Mayfield

The Council apologises for the delay in responding to your Internal Review. It is our view that the requested information is commercially sensitive. We have asked Bills to provide us with more information and are waiting for their answer. We have asked Bills to provide us with an answer so we can respond to you by 13 July 2018.

Once we have received this information we will provide you with a response to your Internal Review.

Yours sincerely  Information Governance Team

   However, this e-mail from HDC did not make sense for a number of reasons:-

   a) There was no similar declared intention by the Council to contact W J King re. the alleged commercial sensitivity and they would have been equally affected by this part of the request. It also seemed strange that Bill's was being asked to dictate the Council's information Governance policy.

   b) There was already a precedent of the Council releasing (within a few months of that former bid process taking place) all of the requested documents of Bill's Restaurant versus Gondola previously. There should have been no valid reason under FOI law that I could see for the inconsistent approach therefore. Furthermore, the Bill's versus W J King Ltd bids were now some six years old and could not sensibly be commercially sensitive we feel.

   c) We were aware the Council routinely reminds bidders for Council contracts that bids might be subject to FOI requests under the Council's standing orders.

   With these points in mind, we therefore responded to the 3rd July e-mail from the Council two days later, on 5th July as per Appendix A below.

   Following my e-mail of 5th July, the Council subsequently gave their internal review decision to part 1) of my request on 13th July saying somewhat bizarrely :-

"Your request asked for:

   1) The evaluation matrix, scores and other documents relating to the Horsham Old Town Hall decision between Bill’s Restaurant and W. J. King when bidding for the Old Town Hall

   These documents were sent as part of the Council’s original response."

However, as above, only one document (rather than "documents") i.e. the overall summary report to Council had been received in response to the initial request. The other documents i.e. the ITT, the bid documents received by the Council from Bill's and W J King; and the other Council documents relating to the detailed evaluation (as was previously supplied by the Council in Bill's versus Gondola) still remain outstanding.

   The second part of the request was:-

2) Details of any rent reviews for the Old Town Hall since Bill's opened and the annual rent to be received from Bill's this financial year 2017/2018.

   The Council originally claimed in its original response that this information "... would prejudice the commercial interests of the Council."HDC then argued in contradiction to this (via their e-mail of 3rd July) that they were “of the view that the information requested [apparently both 1) and 2)] was commercially sensitive and they therefore needed to contact Bill's.

 When the internal review decision finally came (after my Appendix A reply) the Council said:

   “The Council first response applied the exemption at Section 43(2) of the FOIA - Prejudice to commercial interests. Having reviewed this matter, I can advise you that all the information requested in question 2 above is publicly available from the Land Registry on payment of a fee. In accordance with the Council’s duty to provide assistance to requestors I have attached a copy of the lease obtained from the Land Registry this includes the figure of second initial rent sum payable this financial year.          

This concludes the review process."

    However, we did not request a copy of the Old Town Hall lease as we already possessed a copy of this lease. Under the terms of that lease, we were already aware that either Bill's or HDC could request a rent review for the Old Town Hall but the rent should be at least £80,000 after 21st September 2017. In the absence of the Council properly meeting this part of the FOI request, it remains a distinct possibility that neither Bill’s, nor the Council, has requested such a rent review and that HDC didn’t collect the increased rent that was due.      

   After four months of Council squirming, we have now had to trouble the Information Commissioner’s Office once more to try and dig out the answers. We also contacted the auditors of the HDC accounts to see if we could obtain the answer via another route to the increased rental (or not!) question. It was a simple question, just a simple figure from the HDC 2017/18 accounts, but nothing doing! However, in looking down this route, many concerns about the audit process arose.

   More about this in a weeks time.

361

posted 29th August 2018

Question: What is the follow up on your Freedom of Information request

over the Old Town Hall?

   Answer: We've now turned all the evidence over to the Information Commissioner's Office to investigate, which the ICO has agreed to do. Appointing an investigator and carrying out the process may take some time however. Indeed, the Council went off of the rails back in 2006 over the Old Town Hall with its well evidenced dodgy practices and dishonourable behaviour prompting investigations by the District Auditor at the time - and HDC has never really recovered it seems. The same cultural problems appear to persist and we have therefore recently raised a number of specifics with the Council's current auditors - Ernst & Young. More on this in a future update. Let's examine one of the (more honest) cultural problems at the Council ...
   Lack of a coherent strategy 
   We put up a long-term strategy back in 2005 of playing to Horsham's artistic strengths, endorsed by the Council's own Old Town Hall Advisory Group and supported by a detailed feasibility study that the Council requested. We ran the Horsham Community Festival in September 2006 to prove capability and illustrate the potential of the vision. The plan was to attract arts and events related businesses to an 'arts capital' in the South East (Horsham) and create quality jobs in the area. However, this strategy and accompanying plan was finally trumped by dishonourably installing Bill's (in wholly dubious circumstances) in the Old Town Hall instead. All for a paltry £60,000 per annum (£15,000 below market value) too. Now, as just one example of the fall-out, well-established themed festivals are all over the place and other towns have stolen the March on HDC who are still floundering for a consistent offering.
   Because Cote had moved into Horsham's East Street in 2005 the Council attempted to cover their tracks by pretending that Bill's was all part of a grand restaurant quarter strategy pursued by the Council. Since then, restaurants have come and gone and the loss of Wabi (as something more rare and different) was a bit of a blow. Now, Wabi's replacement and the newly reopened Cote will put more competitive pressure on Bill's and the other restaurants in an increasingly vulnerable and shrinking middle market.
   The observations of one of our volunteers recently was quite revealing ....
   "I went to Bill's with members of the family at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk recently. It was pretty funkily decked out with rustic metal covered tables etc. but there were no staff members to welcome you, or even be seen initially. We sat down for a while before I got up to get some menus from a ile in the corner. We studied the menus for some time and the five of us then collectively decided that there was nothing that we really wanted to eat and certainly for a fairly plain menu, not at those prices. We got up unnoticed and decided to go next door to Cote. By contrast, Cote was brilliant. Good, more imaginative and higher end food at the same kind of cost and the welcome and service was excellent. We have been back to Cote there many times since."    
   The Council's jittery response to a shaky restaurant situation was prompted by John Lewis at Home moving to the town's 'West End' (as they liked to call it). Being slightly out of the town centre (a sort of 'West, not end') and therefore not so helpful - and being part of a big chain - they thought this could be a new retail strategy. However, following the loss of British Home Stores and re-locating Waitrose from the town centre at the same time, things didn't ring quite true. Marks & Spencers are now facing much reported pressures too. The major difference that benefits John Lewis is the strength of its on-line business (say, as compared to House of Fraser). However, this does not really help any Council's retail or restaurant strategy.
  So cue the next Council strategy as announced in the West Sussex County Times last week "New programme to boost independent retailing across the Horsham District." We'd like to make a few observations about this announcement.
   1) It's apparently nothing to do with the Council presiding over a declining town centre, something that the proposed, well researched arts strategy foresaw and intended to avert 12 years ago. Instead, the independent traders that are still 'hanging in there' in Horsham town, are simply not performing as well as they might and need some lessons. The town's decline is also nothing to do with the Council's junkie like and self-engineered financial dependence on milking disproportionate parking fees from Horsham town centre, whilst they promote free and cheaper parking in more Conservative voting areas elsewhere across the District. This recently announced programme for independent retailers is District wide, so we expect the 'lions share' of benefits (if there are any) to end up in these out-of-town areas; either where the Council's Cabinet come from, and/or from where more Conservative voting residents have the benefit of some parish council lobbying; given also that the formation of town parish councils (or even a Horsham town council) has been denied by those out-of-town councillors or Cabinet members. Who remembers the whole of a District wide grant ending up at Dial Post Village Hall without due process for example? By contrast, we are an apolitical charity consistently arguing for an arts strategy on a rational basis. It doesn't matter to us how people vote; only that common sense for the benefit of the District (which is also dependent on a thriving Horsham town) prevails. Unfortunately, the Horsham council majority don't seem to see it that way. 
   2) It will take a Council, one that would for unethical reasons take £60,000 from Bill's, instead of £72,500 from Gondola, to teach the independent retailers a thing or two about business. This would be the same Council that commissioned the report by Locum Destination Consulting 'Tourism Strategy for Horsham District' on which the arts strategy was based i.e. a Council that likes to seek expert advice with taxpayers money and then arrogantly ignore the advice. This would also be the same Council that overspent £1.3 million on the Acorn Project over two accounting years and the same Council that stubbornly squandered hundreds of thousands on its misguided Park & Ride scheme. And so on ... 
   3) The independent businesses also need a bit of incentive on customer service apparently. HDC know a lot about this. For example, on Information Governance, they can forget to respond within the 20 day time frame and have to be reminded by the applicant. On the internal review follow up, HDC can then forget to respond in 20 days again. After being prompted by the Information Commissioner's Office they can then illogically claim that they have fulfilled the request by providing two documents already in the public domain. We say illogical, because they initially claimed that they couldn't fulfil the request because information was at first, commercially sensitive to the Council - before changing their position to being commercially sensitive to Bill's (whilst also bizarrely ignoring the involvement of W J King).

   We therefore think any independent retailer following the Council's advice on customer service might be doomed also! 

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posted 11th September 2018

Question: What checks and balances are there on the excesses and incompetence of Horsham District Council?

   Answer: As it turns out, none really. The Audit Commission used to provide a bit of protection in that they provided a value for money judgement. They could also issue a Public Interest Report where they felt Councils were mis-spending. They could flag up dodgy contracts and procurement such as Bill's restaurant versus Gondola at Horsham - and even highlight alleged savings or income that could paradoxically raise spending needs, or raise risk at a later date. However, the Audit Commission were abolished by the Government, mainly so that the big four oligopolies could expand their presence in the public sector. These big four companies generally trouser million upon million for being ineffectual puppets in our view - about 76 million leading up to the collapse of Carillion we seem to recall.

   For a few years now the auditors of HDC have been one of the big four i.e.Ernst & Young - and guess what, following the abolition of the AC, the former Horsham District Auditor for the Audit Commission joined E&Y and carried on doing the HDC audit, drawing upon her prior knowledge. Only then, instead of investigating the Council over e.g. their unethical antics over the Old Town Hall, she had to keep her head down. After all, faced with an historically intransigent Council (no matter what the scale and breadth of their misdemeanours), no private firm is likely to risk loss of contract or gain a reputation for challenging Councils. Hence, the former District Auditor carried on doing a more restrained job using her experience and knowledge from the past - but only for a while! The difference was, the profits from this were now going into the pockets of Ernst & Young. Give it a couple of years - and she is then replaced by another person from E&Y who have subsequently acquired and transferred her knowledge of HDC. We are only guessing; but we guess that the former District Auditor was then possibly made redundant by E&Y?

   The purpose of abolishing the Audit Commission was declared as to save money and to empower local people to challenge underperformance. Eric Pickles, then Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government told the Daily

Telegraph at the time:

   "Audit should remain to ensure taxpayers' money is properly spent, but this can be done in a competitive environment, drawing on professional audit expertise across the country. These proposed changes go hand in hand with plans to create an army of armchair auditors - local people able to hold, local bodies to account for the way their tax pounds are spent and what that money is delivering."

   We recently tested this theory about the public's ability to challenge. How is the theory working out on the last 2017/18 audit for Horsham District Council for example? We'll reveal all in the next couple of updates.

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posted 24th September 2018

Question: What is the latest on Horsham District Council secrecy?

   Answer: Readers may recall that our Trust put in a Freedom of Information Act request to know the rent that was paid by Bill’s restaurant for the people’s Old Town Hall in 2017/18. For some sinister reason we believe (or why the secrecy), the request was denied and the Information Commissioners Office is currently investigating. Meantime, a Liberal District Councillor in Horsham asked the same question and was told that he could have the answer - but only on condition that he disclosed it to no-one.

   There are a couple of points to note about this scenario:

1)  The Council is administering Horsham taxpayers’ money. Horsham residents therefore have a fundamental right to know what constitutes, what is effectively, their own income and expenditure.

2)   In theory, Horsham District Councillors are elected representatives of the people and are accountable to the people.

   By contrast, in denying the information via whatever route, Horsham District Council are clearly confirming themselves to be an unaccountable, self-serving elite that is separate from the people. However, it is an allegation that the Conservative majority on HDC would no doubt hypocritically throw at the likes of Russia from time to time. The perception of a political elite, arrogant and out of touch, was a major reason why David Cameron got such a bloody nose when it came to the EU referendum. One way or another, HDC’s bloody nose is coming.

   The question is: “How does the Liberal Democrat Group on HDC see themselves in the meantime?” It is hard to imagine any punishment the Conservative Cabinet would be able to dish out to a Liberal Democrat Councillor who had the courage to reveal the answer? For one thing, the answer is clearly in the public interest, particularly as it represents the public’s income. Nevertheless, as an alternative though less courageous route, it is within the grasp of all Liberal Democrat Councillors to ask the same question and obtain the answer. If subsequently that answer was leaked to the public (possibly via ourselves), then the political elite at HDC would never be able to identify the source.

   Either way, the choice is an easy one for the Liberal Democrat Councillors we think i.e. “Do they see themselves as part of the political elite playing by Conservative Cabinet rules?”

   OR “Do they see themselves as elected representatives serving the people?”. As ever, time will soon tell!   

364

posted 3rd October 2018

Question: How do the auditors Ernst & Young help with
Horsham District Council’s secrecy?

   Answer: Ernst & Young’s 5th July report said:  

   “Dear Audit Committee Members We are pleased to attach our audit results report for the forthcoming meeting of the Audit Committee...... It should not be used for any other purpose or given to any other party without obtaining our written consent. Yours faithfully, Paul King,
Associate Partner For and on behalf of Ernst & Young LLP”

   One might first ask why the auditor’s report should  be confidential? We believe that any auditor concerns should be public concerns. After all, it is the public’s money that is paying Ernst & Young at the end of the day.
   We subsequently questioned various aspects of this report in a letter to Mr King on 22nd July 2018 through a qualified adviser. As yet, our adviser has received no reply. Here are some extracts raising various questions in the letter to Ernst & Young. We firmly believe that Horsham taxpayers have the right to know the answers.

   ‘Related party transactions We consider any related parties in terms of the underlying relationship and potential influence, and not simply the overall values disclosed.’ [Ernst & Young]

   “Bill’s [Bill’s Restaurant occupying the people’s Old Town Hall] considerable, undue leverage (with a long, proven history of this) was again demonstrated by the recent memo from HDC stating they believed information requested [under Freedom of Information Act] was commercially sensitive and they were needing to contact Bill’s. However, there was no similar desire stated to contact W J King Ltd [the other bidding company involved]. One might ask why Bill’s should be dictating the Council’s Information Governance policy anyway?”

“I am not sure if there has been any NDR [Non-Domestic rate Review](NDR seemingly mentioned as an area of risk in your report) appeal by Bill’s since they took on the lease for the Old Town Hall in 2012?”

“The handling of the request demonstrates to me that the Council is still a considerable distance from the principles stated in Point 2 of the Council’s Annual Governance Statement reviewed by yourselves as part of the audit process.”

   ‘We must also review the Annual Governance Statement for completeness of disclosures, consistency with other information from our work, and whether it complies with relevant guidance.’ [Ernst & Young]

   “There is no doubt that the Council cannot comply with the relevant guidance on Information Governance under the FOIA and it begs the question as to what non-compliance in other fields might be out there? It seems to me that examining other sample areas of Council compliance as part of the audit process might be prudent therefore.”

“It looks at face value like the Letter of Representations (LoR) dated and signed by HDC on 12th July 2012 might have been drafted by E & Y as Appendix B in your 5th July report for the Audit Committee? If so, there would seemingly be insufficient time for the Council to properly verify that the claims being made in the LoR were indeed operational reality at HDC. In any case, the information supplied above in this letter would surely cast doubt on some of the claims made in the LoR and the Annual Governance Statement.”

“Your report of 5th July 2012 expertly highlights initial errors concerning the valuation of the Forum and another car park, and risks to do with the purchase. However, on a quick glance, I couldn’t see any mention of this issue in the final (non-confidential) audit paperwork. The dependency and vulnerability of the Council’s finances on parking income from the town (argued by many in the Horsham press as leading to disproportionate higher charges) has been another matter of considerable public concern over the years and therefore warranted a mention in my view. I am not sure how E&Y monitor areas of public concern to do with the Councils they are auditing?”

“The Annual Governance Statement also talks about the role of the Standards Committee and the 2 public members (although four are listed on the Council’s website without any contact details). However, I am not sure how, when and by who these members are appointed, and whether they are subject to the same Code of Conduct as Members (particularly in respect of declarations of interest).”

“There does not seem to have been much of chance of the public questioning the Council’s finances and/or informing the audit process. I’m not sure if E & Y looked for example at the Council’s 2017 survey results in order to help inform the 2017/18 audit? I am not currently aware that the survey results are published anywhere, only that an action plan will be devised by the Council in 2018.”

“I am not currently sure whether the audit timetable and scope for public questions and or/objections to the accounts was advertised by the Council as required either, and if it was, where? In any case, I think the earlier timetable this year may have required greater attention to this publicity (in line with the Council’s stated ‘principles’).”

“There also seems to have been a very narrow window between your ‘Audit Results’ report of 5th July and the Audit Committee meeting on 12th July (only 5 working days later). The Audit Certificate was issued on the same day too.”

Without any answers being given to the public when they ask, the auditing of Council accounts would now seem to be a waste of time, effort and money. In a ‘double whammy’ - unfortunately, it’s the public’s own money that is being wasted as well!

365

update posted 16th October 2018

Question: What do you think about the decline of Johnston Press

that publishes the West Sussex County Times.

   Answer: We think it was inevitable really. The company was floated on the stock market in 1988 with an initial value of 22 million pounds and achieved a £65 million valuation from expansion by 1994.  Then came the new Chief Executive, Tim Bowdler, who set about a radical programme of cost-cutting consolidation; and with a forecast of ever-increasing profits to be made from regional advertising, set about borrowing vast sums of money to pay over the odds for a large number of mergers and acquisitions for which Bowdler was awarded a CBE. By this time, Johnston Press was No. 2 in the regional newspaper market behind Trinity Mirror.

   Then came the pay back and gradual decline. Local advertising revenues were under pressure from the internet. The paper lost its investigative and quirky local stance, particularly after the 2008 financial crisis. The independent heart and soul of the paper; and its ability to stand up for what was right, retreated from its local publications such as the West Sussex County Times. Ever more reliant on  statutory advertising from Horsham District Council and West Sussex County Council; the West Sussex County Times and Johnston’s other local titles became a Sussex based ‘pet poodle’ for those Conservative Councils; reporting stories, or choosing not to report, accordingly. Uncritical regurgitations of Council press releases without giving the opportunity to known opponents to comment (as they had been given the chance in the past) became the norm.

   As evidence, look at the WSCT reporting of the General Election in 2005 where it gave equal space and billing to 2 independent local candidates over a number of weeks leading up to the election. Compare that to the WSCT election coverage since. Look also at the support that the WSCT initially gave to the people’s tourism solution for Horsham’s Old Town Hall and the betrayal in favour of billionaire-backed Bill’s Restaurant that followed (in terms of editorials supporting Horsham District Council and the lack of reporting of severe malpractice by HDC over the issue  - with specific evidence that the WSCT were made acutely aware of). Meanwhile the Editor in Chief was being successfully cajoled by the Council into heading up or supporting dead-end HDC initiatives such as the Community Development Partnership or the short-lived arts quango (sorry, we can’t even remember what it was called). The previously unabashed letters page in the WSCT became more and more managed, often with editorial comment being added to back up the  Council. The internet, such as via our site, increasingly became the only mechanism by which people could learn the unashamed truth about dodgy dealings at HDC.

   As a result of its journalistic consolidation and tepid dilution, even with a switch away from the broadsheet format, less and less people bought their previously favoured local newspaper - with even more subservience to – and further reliance on statutory advertising from the Councils then prevailing at the WSCT.

   Johnston press now probably faces being broken up and profitable bits sold off to competitors. Who knows whether the West Sussex County Times will even survive as a paper?

  If it does fold completely, the local paper that we once respected, will no longer be a great loss to us!

366

posted 30th October 2018

Question: Does Horsham District Council speak with a forked tongue on

Freedom of Information?

   Answer: We are not quite sure yet. Local resident Paul Kornycky has recently been praised for his tenacity in obtaining an Information Commissioners Office (ICO) ruling forcing the Council to publish the full information relating to the North Horsham development. The Council had misused the claim of 'commercial confidentiality' to try and withold certain details.

   Onthe face of it, the Council is publicly contrite. Brian O'Connel (Conservative, Henfield) is quoted in the local press as saying

   "I suppose where mistakes are made the council should hold its hands up."

Toni Bradnum (Conservative, Nuthurst) reportedly added: "There's no excuse in this day and age for witholding information unless it is absolutely necessary." 

   "I do not regard these as mistakes. I have said in past meetings about the North of Horsham development, they were not mistakes they were a deliberate attempt at the time to withold information from members and from the public."

   Following the ICO ruling Mr Kornycky took up the case with the council's Overview & Scrutiny Committee. The Liberal Democrat Chairman of Overview & Scrutiny, Leonard Crosbie reportedly said:

   "I think that [appealing to the ICO] was a valid thing to do and an appropriate thing to do. Unfortunately some of us councillors were uncomfortable with the process but did not understand why we were."

   The question is: How does this all sit with the Horsham District Council refusal to reveal to the Horsham taxpaying public the amount of rent paid by Bill's Restaurant for Horsham's Old Town Hall in the last financial year? Do these Conservative Councillors mentioned above realise that the figure, representing part of the Horsham taxpayer's own income, is being witheld from the taxpaying public?

   More interesting to us at the moment perhaps, with Overview & Scrutiny having noted the findings of the ICO, is the potential stance of the Liberal Democrat Chairman on the issue of how much rental Bill's paid last year (possibly compared to what Bill's were supposed to be paying). One Liberal Democrat Councillor has already been told that he can know the answer, but only on the condition that he does not reveal it. This obviously raises a further democratic issue of whether councillors are representatives of the voting, taxpaying public - or a separate, unaccountable elite wheeling and dealing with taxpayers money on an opaque, secretive basis.

   How will Horsham District councillors line up on Freedom of Information with respect to the Bill's rental issue when they know the facts? We intend to find out!

367

posted 9th November 2018

Question: What do you think about the latest announcement from

the Health Secretary on the arts?

   Answer: Yes, we have our differences with some of the behaviour at Conservative controlled Horsham District Council, but as a charity, our differences are not political of course. Welcome news about the Conservative Health Secretary Matt Hancock speaking up for the arts therefore.

   In a speech to the King’s Fund healthcare think tank, Mr Hancock said that access to the arts can be an antidote to a range of conditions including mental health problems, ageing and loneliness. He said:

   "It’s scientifically proven. Access to the arts improves people’s mental and physical health. It makes us happier and healthier."

   “We should value the arts because they’re essential to our health and well-being."

   It is a shame that Horsham District Council came on board with these ideas so late with their current 'Year of Culture'. It's an even greater shame that they turned down our arts and tourism proposal based around the Old Town Hall in 2006 and forced us to fight a lengthy battle to successfully defend Horsham's arts against HDC's next tyrannical and hostile leader in Robert Nye. If the Council had not shamefully reneged on the approval of our plan in 2006 then Horsham would now have been 12 years ahead with its arts and culture programme and would not have been losing out to other areas in all that time. There is still no guarantee that an HDC led, rather than an arts charity led, 'Year of Culture' can turn things around of course. However, the right noises at government level can only help.