Medway finds £7m for a council that does not exist yet
Plus the rest of next week's Cabinet reports, planning latest, news in brief, events, and more
Medway Council is preparing to set aside £7m for local government reorganisation, even as reserves sit just above the minimum level and the authority is still dealing with overspends and Exceptional Financial Support. We look at what’s being proposed and what it says about trying to build the next council while still paying for the present, alongside the week ahead, news in brief, events, and more.
Medway finds £7m for a council that does not exist yet
Medway Council is preparing to set aside £7m for local government reorganisation, even as its reserves sit just above the minimum level.
A report due before Cabinet next week proposes using anticipated capital receipts to fund the work needed to prepare for Kent’s biggest local government shake-up in decades. The money would cover 2026/27 and 2027/28, including £3m a year for Medway’s internal work and £1m towards a county-wide programme management office.
Around 30 additional posts or consultants are expected to be needed. The report is blunt about why. No council has “latent capacity” to manage reorganisation on top of everything else it already does.
That might be true, but it is landing at a difficult moment.
Another Cabinet report shows Medway ended the financial year with a £9.8m overspend. The council needs to draw £3.7m from general reserves to balance the position, leaving those reserves just above the £10m minimum level. The total Exceptional Financial Support needed for 2025/26 now stands at £28m.
In other words, Medway is having to find money to prepare for a new council while the current one is still struggling to make the numbers work.
The biggest pressure remains adult social care. The service overspent by £14.7m in 2025/26, with both demand and costs rising. Savings assumed in the budget did not fully materialise in cash terms.
Children’s Services also overspent, while the dedicated schools grant deficit increased again. Borrowing rose by around £130m, about £50m more than budgeted, and debt written off during the year more than doubled, from £2.5m to £5.8m.
None of this means Medway is about to collapse over tomorrow. It does mean the council is operating with very little room for error.
The reorganisation bill is part of the same problem. Local government reorganisation may eventually create a more efficient structure. That is the theory. Before any of that happens, councils have to spend millions of pounds planning, staffing, modelling, merging systems, protecting services, and working out what happens to everything from bin contracts to payroll.
This isn't purely a Medway issue. All Kent councils will be doing similar work at the same time. Medway will contribute to the shared countywide pot while also preparing internally. The total cost of the programme management office across Kent was put at £12m.
The government is expected to announce its preferred option in July. Medway has said it will not challenge the outcome.
The council is also dealing with the physical consequences of its own future planning. Its Gun Wharf headquarters is in the middle of a £22m improvement programme. The work began with the discovery of dodgy concrete, but the project has since broadened to a redesign of the building, working practices, and the council’s long-term use of the site.
More than 55 teams are being relocated while work takes place. The expectation is that next year’s budget meeting will be the first full council meeting held back there.
That timing is hard to miss. By then, Medway should know what kind of council it is preparing to join, lead, or be folded into. The council’s position is that Gun Wharf needs investment regardless, given the condition and listed status of the building. Still, the optics are clear enough that Medway is rebuilding its headquarters while also preparing for a local government structure that has not yet been confirmed.
Elsewhere in the Cabinet papers, the same tension keeps appearing. The council is trying to spend now to reduce pressure later.
A £1m parent advocacy contract is intended to support mothers and fathers with children in or on the edge of care. The previous Advocacy for Mothers programme is said to have kept 29 children out of care over four years, with a claimed cost avoidance of around £7m. Given the current pressure in Children’s Services, the logic is obvious.
Adult education offers another version of the same story. Medway’s adult education service says government funding has been significantly reduced, forcing a shift in its plans from “grow” to “priorities” and “ensure quality.” It says local need remains unmet, but officers say Medway has used Crisis and Resilience Funding to avoid the scale of the course cuts seen elsewhere.
Medway Council draws a stark contrast with Kent County Council. There are no major waiting lists in Medway, and relatively few courses have been cancelled. Anecdotally, some learners may now be travelling into Medway from elsewhere in Kent.
Innovation Park Medway now points in this direction. A scheme once wrapped in the language of innovation and economic growth is heading towards planning as an 80-bed care home, independent living accommodation, and a dozen bungalows for older people on its south site. The Innovation Park branding will likely quietly disappear into the night.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Given the adult social care figures, it may be one of the more realistic things the council is doing. But it does underline how far the conversation has moved from glossy regeneration language to the basic pressures of an ageing population, rising care costs, and the need for somewhere suitable for people to live.
That is the thread running through next week’s Cabinet papers.
Medway is trying to prepare for the future while paying for the present. It needs millions for reorganisation before the new map is even confirmed. It needs millions more for its headquarters before it knows exactly what kind of authority might use it. It is spending on adult education, parent advocacy, and older persons’ housing in the hope that earlier intervention reduces future demand.
Some of this is unavoidable. Some of it may prove sensible. But it leaves Medway trying to keep the current council financially steady, and build the next one before anyone has formally told it what that next one is.
Local Authority is now on WhatsApp
We’ve launched a WhatsApp channel for Local Authority, where we’ll share new stories and the occasional major Medway development directly to your phone.
Council chaos, planning rows, disappearing pubs, strange licensing hearings, and the rest of life around the towns can now be available in yet another app you already check too much.
Council matters
Meetings next week:
- Tuesday: Cabinet will discuss adult education, Gun Wharf's refurbishment, resources for local government reorganisation, Medway's new care home, and more.
- Wednesday: Planning Committee will decide on six HMO applications, with officers recommending five of them be approved.
New planning applications:
- Plans for an artificial grass pitch and floodlights at Lordswood Leisure Centre.
- Fort Pitt Grammar School want to put another floor on top of their sports hall.
- The Co-op at Rochester Riverside wants signage to stop cars from parking in public spaces on a public road.
- Refurbishment and upgrades for the Brook Theatre.
- A porch for Rochester Cathedral.
In brief
🚧 Medway Council are considering closing Rochester High Street to traffic on Sundays and bank holidays, with traders worried that shoppers will no longer face the risk of being run over on the busy street.
⛪ A new church has opened on Luton Road without planning permission.
🏪 Further along Luton Road, Morrisons Daily is set to close, taking the Post Office with it.
🏥 Medway NHS Foundation Trust has appointed a new Chief Executive.
📱 TikTok influencers from Medway are being blamed for recent public disorder in Broadstairs.
🖋️ A museum giving historical context about the people featured in it is "ludicrous," apparently.
🍞 KentOnline have been speaking to Katalin Takacs ahead of the opening of our second Mrs Sourdough outlet in Rochester.
⚽ Mister Maker has teamed up with Gillingham Football Club to reveal an arty new third kit.
Property of the week
This four-bedroom, extended 1930s detached in Gillingham is being sold as a big, practical family house that has been steadily upgraded rather than reinvented. You get the proper bay-fronted front rooms and period touches at the front, then a more modern setup at the back, with the kitchen and conservatory overlooking a long rear garden. The selling points are the everyday ones people actually use, like a utility room, downstairs toilet, driveway with an EV charger, solar panels, and a large outbuilding that will immediately be claimed as an office, studio or storage depending on who gets there first. It’s the sort of place that feels ready for normal life, just with more space than most properties in this part of Gillingham allow.
Events this week
🎤 Fri 29 May - Bugeye + 10 + Angered Kenneth // Disco punk rock night. Poco Loco, Chatham. Tickets £5.
🎷 Fri 29 May - Curtis Stigers // Legendary jazz singer returns to Medway. St Margaret's Church, Rainham. Tickets from £49.
🎉 Sun 31 May - Wesak Buddhist Festival // Wesak celebrates the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha. Includes guided meditation and mantra chanting. Bodhicharya Buddhist Centre, Rochester. Free.
Footnotes
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