Dear Editor
I would like to sincerely thank the people of Horsham for all their support while I was the MP. I am very grateful for the many messages I have received since. I would also like to wish my successor well in the role. It is an amazing position which provides so much opportunity to support residents and contribute to vital national debates at a dangerous time for our country.
The day before the poll my successor through a paid advertisement on Facebook made three statements about me personally. It was too late to challenge them at the time but as it came up on the doorstep the following day, I would like for the sake of the record to do so now.
The three comments were:
1. “I repeatedly tried to meet with Jeremy Quin to discuss the best way forward for our district. He declined to meet.”
I enjoyed attending productive meetings with HDC at their offices attended by the Leader and the Chief Executive among others. Cllr Milne chose not to attend these meetings. Cllr Milne did not personally contact me inviting me to other meetings. However his assistant at HDC did (specifically about the Local Plan for which Cllr Milne was responsible) my response flagging in particular my concerns on water sustainability is on my website (www.jeremyquin.com, June 2023), I did not receive any substantive response from Cllr Milne. After the new administration had settled in I asked (in October 2023) to be briefed on progress on the Local Plan so I could share any misgivings before publication. HDC (as is entirely their right) declined to do so.
2. “He refused to help us secure a new secondary school for the district”.
I have never been asked by HDC to help secure a school and have certainly never refused to help secure one. Even a cursory read of my election literature indicates that I would support an application. I secured Bohunt and would fight to secure another. Where we disagree is on the scale of additional housing Cllr Milne proposes and its sustainability. The recognition of the importance of water sustainability to our development plans has become even more important with a new Government (in line with Liberal Democrat National policy) advocating more (and faster) development.
3. “And he’s not willing to help us protect the countryside between Horsham and Crawley by supporting our application for Greenbelt designation.”
I have never been approached to do so. This is unsurprising as there is no such application. As the Leader of the Council wrote to me on 20th March “no formal Cabinet or Council decisions have been made in this respect”. Any such attempt (in many years time) would require the acceptance of a new town or major urban extension for which, we have been assured, there are no plans.
I wish my successor well but after nearly a decade of service to our communities in Parliament I did want to set the record straight on these three points.
Yours sincerely
Jeremy Quin