Crawley fountain to remain dry for fourth year in a row

The fountain in Crawley town centre looks likely to stay dry for the fourth summer in a row.

The fountain was installed in autumn 2017 but only worked for two summers, with technical issues and, of course, the pandemic preventing it from entertaining young and old alike.

During a Crawley Borough Council meeting, Conservative leader Duncan Crow said: “It’s very disappointing to see that it’s not going to be working again this summer.”

In a written question to Atif Nawaz, cabinet member for planning & economic development, he added: “We have just had the hottest June on record and summer last year was one of the hottest ever, with high temperature records broken.

“The water jets are still not working and it has been several years since this feature has been on during the summer with children in particular able to enjoy.”

Mr Crow called on Mr Nawaz to apologise for ‘this failure of the council’ and asked where the blame lay.

The meeting was told that a flood in the plant room in November 2021 had filled it to the ceiling, damaging the equipment which controls the fountains as well as some of the surrounding electrical supplies.

Repairs were said to be ‘significant and not a simple solution’.

Mr Nawaz said the council had looked into whether it could take legal action to claim the cost of repairs from the contractor which fitted the fountain.

But the authority’s advisers said that pursuing such as case was ‘likely to be costly, very difficult to prove and could have necessitated holding off undertaking the repair works until it is resolved’.

And there was no telling how long that would be.

Instead, a new contractor was expected to start work on the site on Monday (July 31).

Mr Nawaz, said: “We are working to get it back as soon as possible and hopefully before September.”