A tale of two councillors
Are Medway Labour holding two councillors to different standards? Plus new Paddock opens, planning updates, news in brief, and more
We lead on a slightly grubby story this week, where Medway Council’s ruling Labour administration have taken five days to respond to offensive tweets from one of their own, only to say “no comment”. It’s difficult not to compare this with a situation last week where another councillor was rapidly condemned for calling far-right activists ‘Nazis’. It’s not all depressing hypocrisy though, as further down we have news of the new Paddock in Chatham, which opened today, some interesting planning applications, our news in brief section, and more.
A tale of two councillors
On Friday, we published details of old tweets from new Labour MP for Rochester and Strood Lauren Edwards. The tweets included references to “fucking Estonian retards”, jibes about William Hague’s sexuality, complaints about cleaners in her workplaces, and comments about elbowing homeless people.
It goes without saying that none of it looked good, but while Edwards did issue an apology on her since deleted Twitter account, there was no word from the Labour Party, either locally or nationally, on the issue.
So, here we are, four days on, surely the party would have formed some kind of view on whether it considers these sorts of comments acceptable?
Apparently not.
There has been no comment from the national party on the matter at all. The local party did at least manage to issue something today, but whether or not they should have bothered is up for debate.
Leader of the Opposition George Perfect wrote to Medway Council Leader Vince Maple twice in the last week, the first time to raise his concerns, and the second to ask direct questions about whether he condemned the comments and what he planned to do about them.
These should not be particularly challenging questions to answer, not that you’d be able to tell from the response issued by Medway Labour.
Thank you for your letters dated 8th and 13th August regarding a number of social media posts from more than a decade ago.
I have spoken to Cllr Lauren Edwards MP and am aware that she has issued a public statement apologising wholeheartedly for these posts. I am pleased that she has apologised and welcome her statement.
I have no intention of commenting further on this matter, and remain focussed on delivering the priorities of the people of Medway…
Yikes.
The letter explicitly makes no comment on the offensive tweets themselves, instead just dismissively references “social media posts from more than a decade ago”, and welcomes her apology before getting on to the usual Medway Labour talking points.
Nothing to suggest he or Medway Labour have any issue with the tweets and nothing to acknowledge the hurt and upset they would have caused.
It is hard to imagine a world where Cllr Maple or Medway Labour would find this an acceptable response if this was going on within another party. For a party that swept to power locally with the promise of doing better, this feels like the same old ‘protect your own’ politics that we have seen all too often.
It is also difficult not to contrast the Medway Labour (lack of) response to Edwards’ posts to the far more aggressive stance they took toward the suspended Labour councillor Satinder Shokar last week for the crime of calling far-right activists ‘Nazis’.
Cllr Shokar, for his part, has defended his position, arguing that he is a longstanding anti-racism campaigner who has faced racism himself throughout his life. Regarding the Nazi chants, Cllr Shokar asserts that Nazi imagery and symbolism was seen at the demonstration, leading to the somewhat understandable anti-Nazi chanting.
It took less than 12 hours for Chatham and Aylesford MP Tris Osborne to declare that there is “no place for this kind of language” in the Labour Party. Within a day, Cllr Maple had managed to issue a statement on Cllr Shokar, suggesting his comments weren’t ideal while also highlighting that Shokar seemed to be coming under more scrutiny than others for his role in the chants.
This is the kind of pragmatic middle ground that is common from Cllr Maple, and it remains all the more baffling just how much he has misjudged the tone of response when addressing Edwards’ social media posts.
This whole situation makes Medway Labour look horribly indecisive and rather hypocritical on tackling issues within their own party, given how strongly they have gone after members of other political parties for their members’ social media posts.
Still, it is at least useful to understand where the lines are. Calling Nazis ‘Nazis’ is bad, but calling people ‘fucking Estonian retards’ isn’t that big of a deal, apparently.
New Paddock is open
What do you get when you transform a small and slightly unloved green space in the centre of Chatham for £2.8m?
The new version of The Paddock between the bus station and the Pentagon opened today to give us some sort of answer.
The newly upgraded Paddock features large planted areas, accessible lawns, a quite nice engraved map of Chatham, and improved pathways. These are all, by any measure, good things.
Elsewhere, it features an ampitheatre that would struggle to be used as an ampitheatre as there’s a giant planter in the middle of it, skateboarders have been deliberately designed out of the location despite their use of the old Paddock, while additional seating has been included for the kind of people that want to sit around the centre of Chatham during the day.
The Paddock scheme is part of the wider regeneration of the area, with the waterfront flats nearby nearing completion, and the upcoming work on Mountbatten House and the Pentagon.
Chatham still has a long way to go, and while the new Paddock hardly seems perfect, it is at least an interesting and refreshed space in the centre of town, providing a nicer gateway into the town centre than what existed before. Now, there just needs to be more reasons to actually go there in the first place.
More images of the new Paddock:
Planning news
The planning application for ‘Ironmonger Yard’ (formerly ‘Bardell Wharf’) in Rochester has been submitted to Medway Council. The plans feature a mixed-use development with 296 flats and commercial spaces. This represents a drop of around 80 units from the previously approved plans.
The application also comes within days of the ‘public consultation’ by the developer finishing, meaning they clearly had the time to take public comments on board and make changes rather than it just being a tick box exercise.
A decision on the plans should be made by November. You’ll be able to view the full plans on Medway Council’s planning portal shortly but they don’t seem to have uploaded all of the documents yet.
Elsewhere, the ongoing infilling of Chatham continues with a proposal to remodel the current auction house on Rhode Street into 13 flats flats and two commercial units.
This will involve increasing the height of the existing building by two storeys, and remodelling it to accomodate three floors of residential units, most of which do manage to meet minimum space standards. The plans for the development are now available on Medway Council’s planning portal.
In brief
🐕 Medway Council are consulting on a new Public Space Protection Order regarding dogs. It would require dogs to be on leads in a number of parks and public spaces across Medway and exclude them from things like Play Areas. It all seems fairly sensible, but like all such things, it can only work if enforced.
🏥 661 patients in A&E at Medway Maritime Hospital waited more than 12 hours in a corridor last month. This means Medway NHS Foundation Trust ranks 178th of 197 hospital trusts in the country.
🚌 A bus crashed into a block of flats that were under construction in Gillingham. The incident involved another car, and led to a lot of scaffolding looking very unsafe. It is unclear if any injuries were involved.
🎙️ The We Did It Medway podcast is now five episodes in, and is well worth your time. The new series, from Rob Flood and Phillip Dodd, is proving entertaining so far, with episodes covering Medway’s suffragists, Isaac Newell, the Medway Queen, Sweeps Festival, and, of course, Dickens.
More Authority
Over the weekend, we interviewed Cllr George Perfect, the new Leader of the Opposition at Medway Council. We discussed George's election as Leader of the Conservative Group, the recent General Election campaign, social media use, and the Local Plan.
Footnotes
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: This Is My World by Helen Love, Reputation by Taylor Swift, and Arnos Vale by Personal Best.
I am not defending the comments made by Lauren Edwards, but I do think everyone would benefit from reflecting upon whether they have ever said or posted anything which could be considered inappropriate (and with the benefit of hindsight) most certainly is. Some have called for her to be disciplined - but can you discipline someone for historic posts which have been in the public domain for over a decade and before they were elected to office and for which they have already apologised? The scrutiny now should lie in the failings for how and why these comments were not identified ahead of any selection process at both local or national level.
The developer's picture of "Ironmonger Yard" appears to show Commercial Road and Star Hill as pedestrianised open space, which is an interesting presumption on what will happen to the main, busy, 4 lane highway that connects Chatham, Rochester and Strood! Surely the developer is not rushing to get the application approved before the Local Plan is in place? Perish the thought!