A night of big numbers and small obsessions
Medway passes its budget after a night of amendments, plus Wayfield’s Ofsted, Station Road closures, planning, and lots more
Medway Council set its budget this week, with the usual speeches, amendments, and predictable vote at the end. We break down what was agreed, what the opposition groups tried to change, and what it means in practice, alongside planning, in brief, property, events, and sport...
A night of big numbers and small obsessions
Medway Council set its budget on Wednesday night, which means we all gathered at the St George’s Centre to watch councillors do the annual ritual of telling each other they are either reckless, incompetent, or both, before voting exactly how you would expect them to vote.
We got straight into the budget, and Vince Maple kicked off with the administration’s proposals. Exceptional Financial Support again, council tax up again. Lots of national politics first, because apparently the best way to explain Medway’s finances is to talk about the government for a bit.
Then the line he clearly wants printed everywhere, and we appear to be obliging him. The council spends £1.35m every day on adult social care, children’s services and strategic housing, mainly temporary accommodation. He said he was "supremely confident" that Exceptional Financial Support won’t be needed next year. He also argued in favour of staff pay rising by 3.5%, so that the council needs to rely less on expensive temporary staff. He talked about weekly bin collections, because Medway has decided bins are a personality trait, and he had a go at the opposition for voting against weekly bins last year, by which he means voting against the budget, which is an interesting approach.
Then Maple turned his fire toward Reform. Kent County Council under Reform is "chaos," he said, and referenced the Kent Current's reporting about councillors posing with neo-Nazis, to which Reform members in the gallery laughed.
Cllr George Perfect replied as opposition leader and brought his own chaos theme, this time aimed at Labour. He talked about borrowing, vanity projects, local government reorganisation, and work at Gun Wharf. He also noted that "We want to see the council going harder on AI," which is possibly bold or possibly cursed.
He also took a swing at Reform, calling their economic policies "left-wing" and suggesting they would be even worse than Labour. Reform wants to be treated as a main opposition force in Medway, but the Conservatives are making clear they are not going to help with that.
Then we got to amendments, which is where everyone stops pretending this is all abstract and starts showing you what they actually care about.
First up, the Conservatives, who earlier this month promised an alternative budget and a different vision, arrived with their big idea.
Free parking. For 30 minutes. In five car parks.
The amendment would drop plans for a new care home and town centre improvement schemes, and use the money for free short-stay parking and free parking at country parks. Medway Council’s budget is hundreds of millions of pounds. We then spent a weird amount of time talking about £350,000 for parking, as if it were the hinge point of civilisation.
Cllr Andrew Lawrence argued, "we don’t want money spent on PR," which is always a crowd pleaser. Labour councillors responded by pointing out that dropping the care home does not make the need for care disappear. It just moves the bill. Cllr Douglas Hamandishe contributed by pointing out that "there’s something to be said for deferred gratification," he said, before quickly making clear that he was definitely talking about the care home. Cllr Gary Hackwell went the other way. "We can’t afford a care home, full stop," he said. So it went.
The amendment failed, the dream of free parking dying once again.
Next up was the Independent Group, with what Cllr Michael Pearce called his "common sense amendment," which can be loosely translated as everything should be potholes, specifically potholes on the Hoo Peninsula.
To do this would require freezing salaries, removing new town centre spending, and putting the lot into resurfacing. It was not subtle. It was also not popular. Labour and Conservatives united in the rare spirit of joint mockery. Cllr Barry Kemp described it as "the most ludicrous amendment" he’d seen in decades. Maple called it "pork barrel politics." Pearce accused them of contempt for his residents, which is perhaps a fair reaction when the whole chamber is laughing at you.
Unsurprisingly, that amendment also failed.
Then Reform, who proposed dropping the care home, sacking climate change officers, freezing pay, blocking recruitment, and then tried to repackage the money into a flat-rate staff award, potholes, and a staff savings competition, because nothing says 'we have a plan' like turning the council workforce into contestants.
Perfect described Reform’s savings ‘499 Scheme’ as sounding like "a Tesco Clubcard offer." Labour councillor Simon Curry said he did not know whether "to laugh or cry." Maple made the cleanest point of the night by asking how Reform’s amendment could be described as ‘not ideological,’ as group leader David Finch had earlier claimed, when, out of the council’s workforce, they had chosen only the climate change officers for the chop. The amendment, of course, was lost.
Then the main budget. More speeches, more repetition, and more councillors beginning with "I wasn’t going to speak," who probably should have listened to their instincts. The administration budget passed, as it always would, because this is Medway and Labour has the numbers.
Somewhere in the middle of the debate, someone loudly farted in the chamber. We are not a culture that handles this well, so almost everyone carried on as if nothing had happened, which made it worse, and therefore better.
And then, because Medway cannot help itself, Labour councillor David Field took to BlueSky to clarify that he was not the farter. "To confirm I was not the farter," he wrote, adding that from where he was sitting, it sounded like it came from the other side of the chamber. He also helpfully noted that he was one of the speakers who made an important contribution, emphasising the importance of the budget.
To confirm I was not the farter, and from where I was sitting it sounded like it came from the other side of the chamber. (however I was one of the speakers referred to who made another important contribution emphasising the importance of this budget)
— David Field (@davidfield.bsky.social) 2026-02-25T23:58:39.752Z
The budget is through, the amendments have been binned, and the councillors have all issued their press releases explaining how they were definitely right. Labour will call it stability and responsibility, the Conservatives will call it a debt disaster, and Reform will call their proposals common sense.
The practical version is simpler. Council tax goes up, parking gets tweaked, the care home argument stays exactly where it was, and we all meet back here next year to do the same shouting again, just with slightly different numbers.
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Council matters
Meetings next week:
- Licensing Hearing Panel: Medway Council will hear an objection from Medway Council on a new alcohol licence for a convenience store on New Road, Chatham.
- Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee: Portfolio holders for both education and children's services will be grilled across a range of subjects.
New planning applications:
- Plans have been put forward to demolish garages and a storage unit at the rear of Railway Street in Chatham and replace them with four flats and three houses.
- An application has been submitted to convert an empty office building on Green Street into a 19 bedroom HMO. To try and get around the stigma, the project is being promoted as a 'co-living' scheme and includes, er, a podcasting studio for the residents.
- This week's HMO applications include Franklin Road and Paget Street in Gillingham, Institute Road in Chatham, and Gordon Road in Strood.
In brief
🗞️ The Local Democracy Reporting team took part in some crime tourism last week, visiting Chatham to see just how bad things are. They managed to get such devastating quotes from locals as "I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation where I felt unsafe" and "I don’t feel threatened at all."
🏫 Wayfield Primary School has received a damning Ofsted report, with inspectors declaring that safeguarding efforts don't keep children safe and teaching is not up to standard.
🚧 The ongoing closure of Station Road in Strood has expanded, with emergency works now affecting both ends of the street. SGN, the gas company behind the works, told us that the High Street end should be open imminently, but it was "too early to say how long repairs at Station Road’s junction with Frindsbury Road will take to complete. We sincerely apologise to the Strood community for the ongoing disruption and any inconvenience caused by our works, and we’re working as quickly and safely as possible to complete repairs."
🕌 A £4m shortfall has delayed construction of a new mosque on Railway Street in Gillingham.
🚓 Kent Police tackled some serious crimes last weekend, confiscating 23 e-scooters.
💡 Residents in St Mary Hoo are very upset about the prospect of streetlights being installed.
➡️ The Reform shop on Strood High Street has disappeared, after it was never really used for anything other than some signage.
➡️ Speaking of Reform, residents on St Mary's Island in Chatham were delighted to receive a leaflet from the party this week bearing the slogan 'For Medway. For Strood, For YOU.'
🏴 We regret to inform you that Mark Reckless is at it again.
⚽ The Guardian profiled the Chatham Town Women's team as part of their remarkable FA Cup run.
⚓ Chatham Historic Dockyard is leading a bid for Chatham to become the UK's first Town of Culture, which would see £3m in cultural investment.
🧰 Medway Men in Sheds is set to expand following a new three year contract and an increase in funding.
🛍️ The Little Shop opens on Rochester High Street tomorrow. The new shop offers a range of unique gifts, homewares, and stationery and is located in the former Get Ready Comics shop.
Your questions, please.
A lot of our best stories start in the least glamorous way possible. Not with a press release or a grand announcement, but with someone emailing us a simple question. Why is this road closed again? What is going on with that building? Who actually owns it? When did this decision get made, and why does nobody seem to be talking about it?
Those are not small questions. They are the questions that tell you how Medway actually works.
If there is something in your town or village that has been bothering you, confusing you, or quietly getting worse while everyone shrugs and walks past, hit reply and tell us. It can be as basic as a set of cones that never seems to move, a shop unit that has sat empty for years, a planning notice that makes no sense, or a service that has become unreliable. If you have photos, emails, or documents, even better, but you do not need them. A clear question is often enough for us to start pulling at the thread.
Send us your burning questions, and we'll try to take it from there.
Property of the week
This period terrace on Nelson Road in Gillingham is on the market for £350,000, and it is the sort of place that sells itself on being a proper, grown-up house rather than a box with an open-plan kitchen. It has that familiar Victorian layout with rooms that are actually rooms, a bit of character, and enough odd little corners to make you think about what you would do with them. The listing also leans on the practical perks that feel faintly luxurious in parts of Gillingham, like a place to park a car without a nightly street feud, and extra space upstairs that can be an office, a hideaway, or the place you promise yourself you will finally use properly. There is also a cellar, which can be either handy storage or a future hobby, depending on your tolerance for DIY.
Events this week
🐉 Sat 28 Feb - Chatham Chinese Festival // Performances, market stalls, food, celebrating Medway's Chinese community. Chatham High Street. Free.
🇺🇦 5 Mar - 7 Apr - Month of Ukrainian Art in Medway // Multiple exhibitions of art by Ukrainian artists. Halpern Gallery, Chatham and Halpern Pop, Rochester. Free.
Sport this weekend
🏒 Invicta Dynamics vs Milton Keynes Falcons // Sat 28 Feb, WNIHL Division 2, Planet Ice. Medway’s dominant women’s side host third-place MK, and entry is free.
⚽ Chatham Town Women vs AFC Sudbury // Sun 1 Mar, Division 1 South East, Bauvil Stadium. Chatham host struggling Sudbury, with free tickets for this one.
🏒 Invicta Mustangs vs Guildford Phoenix // Sun 1 Mar, NIHL Division 2 South, Planet Ice. Second place Guildford come to town, with the Mustangs away at Alexandra Palace the day before to face Haringey.
Playing away: Gillingham FC visit Barrow (League 2), Chatham Town visit Whitehawk (Isthmian Premier), Invicta Dynamos visit both Swindon and Cardiff (NIHL South Division 1), Medway Rugby Club visit Sudbury (Regional 1 South East).
Footnotes
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