Crawley Borough Council is currently running a ‘consultation’ on ‘whether’ to set up a Crawley Town Council, seeking to recreate Crawley Borough Council via the back door, following the Labour Government legislating that two-tier local government must come to an end.

The prime motivator is political self-interest of the Crawley Labour Party and continued publicity of their Councillors on Council social media, not the interests of Crawley. The way the local Labour leadership have gone about the process of imposing a town council on Crawley is eye opening.

Any genuine effort seeking to improve future local governance arrangements in Crawley, would have sought a collaborative cross-party approach, while keeping an open mind as to what, if anything, ought to change.  Had I been Council Leader, that’s what I would have done, setting up a cross-party working group at the town hall to properly look at the pro and cons of setting up a town council, looking at real evidence, learning from other areas that have done it, and then publishing the findings, before a public consultation.

But no, Crawley Labour, the same people who are discredited from trying to bounce Crawley into Surrey, don’t want you to see an honest appraisal of options.  What happened is the Labour Leader of Crawley Borough Council tabled a motion to a Full Council meeting to start the process of setting up a town council.  Our Conservative amendment to put the final proposal to a local Crawley referendum at the same time as the 2026 local elections, was voted down by Labour.    

A ‘Crawley Town Council’ will happen regardless of the ‘consultation’ findings, as Labour will ignore any responses they don’t like.  I’ve seen internal Crawley Labour communications, begging party members to support a town council in the consultation exercise, so that they can claim public support.

An additional town council will make it more expensive overall for all our council services to be delivered, which could then risk service cuts.  That’s a high price to pay for pursuing a continuation of never-ending promotion of the current Council Leader on the Council’s Facebook page.    

Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group

12th November 2025