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Councillors have been criticised for not debating a petition about housing rents at a recent Crawley Borough Council meeting.

And the authority has been called on to hold the debate at a large venue such as The Hawth or K2 leisure centre once it does make it on to the agenda.

The petition, signed by just over 1,000 people, called for new council housing tenants to pay cheaper social rents rather than affordable rents.

It was handed over at the town hall on March 9 by Robin Burnham and others.

But during the meeting on Wednesday (March 30), Mr Burnham, of Bewbush, complained that the petition was to be discussed in July rather than before May’s elections.

He told the meeting that he had been assured that that would not be the case and called on councillors to ‘nail their colours to the mast’ and say how they felt about the issue.

The meeting was told that the petition could not be discussed as the council was now in the pre-election period known as Purdah.

Crawley housing rents petition won’t be debated until after council election