Bewbush Shops Car Entrance To Narrow For Buses!

Dorsten Square is the home of Bewbush Shops and also the home to a very busy bus stop which has the FastWay Route 10 serving the stop every 10 minutes along with many other routes.

The Bus Stop has always been in the same place and was left in its current location when Dorsten Square was revamped and the new Car Park for the shops and Bewbush Center added.

Here is my issue the Entrance for Cars to the shop Car Park from the roundabout is a piece of road in the shape of an S which is fine however as buses come out of the Bus Stop area they are unable to negotiate the bend and drive in a straight line down the middle of the road, I have nearly had the front of my car removed on many occasions by the buses coming towards me or by completely ignoring the fact they have to Give Way to vehicles leaving the shops. 

The common sense again seems to have been missing when this was designed as its clearly not suitable for buses and given they are constantly in and out of the area given the frequency of the buses they should of formed much more of the decision making process around this particular piece of road as its clearly dangerous and is only a matter of time before there is an accident here.

Having looked into this I have been told the issue is because Crawley Borough Council own the land either side of the road whilst West Sussex County Council own the road itself and they could not agree and that's why the road is not wider. This is ridiculous in itself as the 2 Councils are meant to work in the best interests of the PEOPLE!

This needs reviewing and the entrance way needs to be reshaped or widened to make it more suitable for buses and cars to be able to pass each other!

Kilnwood Vale, Poor Planning or Planned To Be A Burden?

Was Kilnwood Vale a situation of poor planning or was it planned to be a burden on Crawley's existing infrastructure?

Crawley was designed and built to the neighbourhood idea where each of the neighbourhood's would be almost self sufficient with Schools, Shops, Doctors and a neighbourhood center with Community Centers at the heart of this.

This seems to of been overlooked when designing the latest of these neighbourhoods for Crawley in Kilnwood Vale which is proposed to contain 3500 new homes and I will touch on a few of these things in this post.

1) The Train Station - The Original plans for Kilnwood Vale included a train station given its close proximity to the railway line that runs between Ifield & Faygate, however in November of 2014 this was taken away as there are plans for a new station North of Horsham for the dwellings being built there and Network Rail will only allow one new station on the line and so now looks like one of the key pieces of infrastructure promised with this development will not happen. Now I have to say I looked at the houses and considered a purchase if I had done it would of been because of the train links to London and Gatwick and now thats not happening I would of been less than impressed.

2) Bus Routes - On the original plans for the development it showed a bus route from the mini roundabout on Sullivan Drive in Bewbush to Kilnwood Vale this would be the same as the bollard which rises only to allow buses through which is currently in use at the Stadium into Broadfield. This would allow the Number 10 bus to extend its route to Kilnwood Vale and connect it to the Airport and Crawley Town Center. This also has disappeared from the current site layout on the developers website and Kilnwood Vale is now served by the Number 23 bus which runs every 30 minutes.


3) Health Care Facilities - The Neighbourhood policy which Crawley was designed to orientate around meant each neighbourhood could effectively be self sufficient without becoming a burden on the ones around it. Again this has been overlooked (or was it? Only the council will ever know the truth!). This means that Bewbush Doctors Surgery is currently overwhelmed by the number of new applications for Health Services as originally it was only built to accommodate 2000 patients originally and with 3500 homes in Kilnwood Vale alone the maths on this clearly does not add up and thats before taking into account the flats built on the old car park at Bewbush Shops and also Buchans Mead on the site of Bewbush Leisure center so clearly something needs to happen here. Now Bewbush was originally to receive a new Health Center as part of the development of Dorsten Square and was then taken away once the redevelopment started but you can still find reference to this online in the 2007 planning documents for Bewbush, surely now is the time to deliver this facility!

Below is the plan for Kilnwood Vale which is currently on the developers website.




Now I am no politician and do not wish to be but it seems to me that as residents we are constantly being promised things that are not delivered, to make it worse to get these developments approved we are told all the positive thinks they will bring to the community and then when it comes to taking things away these are simply foot notes that we are not fully informed about. I would like to think that the council will take note and start doing the right thing as these are people elected by us to work for us and this is simply not in our best interests!