Developer makes promises to get planning permission, immediately changes mind
Plus swimming instructors insist they are being made redundant, Christmas light funding, St Mary Hoo Parish Council stays weird, news in brief, and more
It’s a running joke among many who follow planning issues that the final result is never quite what was originally promised. This week, a developer in Grain starkly made that point, offering nice things like footpaths, planting, and a pedestrian crossing to get planning permission and then immediately changing their minds. More on that frustrating situation below. Further down, we have an update on the saga of Medway’s swimming instructors, who have seemingly been told they are being made redundant while Medway Council insists they aren’t. There’s also news on who is funding Medway’s Christmas lights this year, another update to the ongoing St Mary Hoo Parish Council saga, news in brief, and more.
Developer makes promises to get planning permission, immediately changes mind
Residents often tend to be suspicious of developers building properties in their area. Often, this is with some overly enthusiastic NIMBY zeal, but sometimes it can be over the little details. Buildings or landscaping not looking like they were promised, or improvements that are never delivered. Today, a pretty egregious example of the latter.
Earlier this year, developer Esquire applied for planning permission to build 34 homes in the village of Grain. The homes themselves are nothing hugely exciting, being a pretty standard sort of residential development. The devil here is very much in the detail.
The crucial bit of the application was that Esquire proposed adding a new pedestrian footpath connection and pedestrian crossing on Grain Road, where the rear of the development is located. While vehicle access is via the existing Edinburgh Road, given the proximity to the main Grain Road, a footpath connection is logical given most things of use are in that direction.
Here’s a map with the relevant area highlighted:
The High Street across the road from the development includes the Co-op, the main shop in the village, the pub, and is the primary route to the coast and parks. So if you’re moving into Grain and want to encourage people to get around the local community on foot, it’s a useful bit of infrastructire.
The High Street across the road from the development includes the Co-op, the main shop in the village, the pub, and is the primary route to the coast and parks. So if you’re moving into Grain and want to encourage people to get around the local community on foot, it’s a useful bit of infrastructure.
The plans included additional elements on this northern boundary, too. They proposed planting to create bee and insect habitats, leading to a biodiversity net gain and some timber positioning to control access to the verge, or in other words, a way of stopping people from parking their cars on it.
When the development came to Medway’s planning committee, officers recommended that the development be approved. Officers were pleased about the pedestrian footpath and crossing:
The access arrangements are considered acceptable with pedestrian footpaths and a pedestrian link to Grain Road. The proposed pedestrian crossing on Grain Road is well located with good vision.
Councillors approved the application, and on 4 November, full planning permission was granted.
So ends the tale of how a new development ended up with a helpful pedestrian connection, and we move on to the next story.
Or not.
Fast forward to 28 November, three and a half weeks after Esquire was granted permission for the site. They submitted a new application to amend the planning permission to remove the pedestrian footpath connection and planting from the front of the site.
Somehow, a footpath and planting, which were essential parts of the application less than a month earlier, were suddenly unnecessary.
It remains unclear precisely what changed in less than a month from Esquire’s point of view. The application for the amendment claims the reason as being ‘third-party land’, suggesting they don’t have permission to access it to include the promised infrastructure. If this is the case, they chose to either not make that clear during the original application, knowing they were offering plans they couldn’t deliver, or they didn’t know they couldn’t use it, suggesting an element of incompetence. Either scenario paints a negative picture.
As we prepared this piece, we asked Esquire what had happened and why they could not include the footpath and planting as part of their plans. They told us that “on this occasion, we are not going to comment.”
Of course, while Esquire is a key player in this debacle, some of the blame must also be laid at the door of Medway Council’s planning department.
Esquire submitted the amended proposals on 28 November as a ‘non-material amendment’. Non-material amendments are a tool used in the planning process to allow developers to tweak some parts of their plans without going through the full planning process. The process is discretionary though, meaning a council can reject a change as non-material if it is indeed, in their eyes, material.
They didn’t feel that way in this case, even though the changes mean it will now take four times longer for residents of the new development to walk to the shops. Or, more likely, they’ll walk across the grass, eventually turning it into an unsightly trampled down bit of land.
As a result, Medway Council raced through the application through the process, approving it on 5 December, a week after they received it, with no time for anyone to raise any objections to the change.
When we alerted All Saints ward councillor Chris Spalding to the issue, he quickly made his displeasure clear:
“As part of the original planning application, Esquire included a proposal for open areas comprising nectar and pollen rich wild flower and grassland to provide a source of food for insects and invertebrates. In addition, there was to be a footpath linking the development with a new pedestrian crossing. Now it seems we are getting none of this which is obviously a massive cost saving to Esquires. That it is being classed as a non material amendment is outrageous. Quite frankly this stinks!”
Ultimately, Grain will get the 34 new homes without the little things that would make life for the residents just a little bit easier. Is it any wonder that so many people end up so cynical of the process when it does things like this so brazenly?
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Swimming instructors facing murky future
Two weeks ago, we wrote about an odd situation involving Medway’s swimming instructors, who had reportedly been told they were being made redundant in the new year. This was at odds with Medway Council’s position, which claimed it was effectively just a minor adjustment of contracts and everyone would still have a job.
As ever, things continue to be more murky than they initially appeared.
Following that story, impacted swimming instructors contacted Local Authority to dispute the Medway Council position.
The swimming instructors allege that they met with a senior officer for an informal meeting over a month ago and were told they would be made redundant. They were told that formal notification would follow, but it still hasn’t, inevitably leaving them feeling anxious and in limbo about what is going on.
Further, the swimming instructors were offered the chance to teach on a self-employed basis, which means no sick pay, holiday pay, or pension. More than one instructor claims to have contacted HR, who knew nothing of their situation. One instructor described their situation as ‘disgusting’.
We put these allegations to Medway Council a week ago to clarify what is going on, but have had no response.
Our inbox remains very open to anyone who knows what is happening. Drop us an email via hello AT localauthority DOT news and we’ll be happy to chat on or off the record.
Christmas lights find new funding
Last year, there was a huge furore over Christmas lights in Medway and precisely who would fund them. Medway’s new Labour administration, making a point about the dire financial situation, announced there would be no lights, and everyone lost their minds.
This year, things have been considerably quieter. Christmas lights have gone up in each of our towns, but it has been unclear who was paying for them. Now, six weeks after Local Authority asked Medway Council this seemingly simple question, they have finally answered.
Like last year, the main lights are being sponsored, with council contractors Marston Holdings and Volker Highways footing the bill. That seems to apply for the lights in Chatham, Gillingham, Rainham, and Strood anyway.
Rochester is in a slightly different position. Following successful fundraising efforts in the town last year, the Rochester City Centre Forum has taken over the running of Rochester’s lights from Medway Council. The group raised over £25,000 to protect Rochester’s Christmas lights for the future and has been putting that money to use.
£15,000 has been spent on all-new mountings that run the entire length of the High Street. They have also bought new lights for the ‘Eastgate Quarter’, otherwise known as ‘the bit near Star Hill’. They are continuing their fundraising efforts this year, selling Christmas tree decorations in Rochester businesses and participating in other activities. However, efforts have been dampened with the cancelling of the Christmas Dickens Festival. Ultimately, though, they remain happy to be taking on the lights from the council:
Our approach to taking over responsibility for the lighting has come from us recognising that the Council should, rightly, concentrate on essential services. Christmas lights are something a council can afford in times of surplus - and those times are not right now.
Elsewhere, Medway’s Christmas trees come from various sources. Councillors use their ward improvement funds to pay for most trees, while Rainham has a tree paid for through community fundraising arranged by Tesco. Hoo Parish Council and Hempstead pay privately to have their trees lit.
In these days of increasingly tight council budgets, it feels like Medway will need to continue to seek sponsors for Christmas lights for many years.
St Mary Hoo Parish Council stays weird
A quick update on the weird situation out at St Mary Hoo Parish Council, where all but one councillor resigned in protest of planning permission being granted to the Fenn Bell Inn to build 44 homes back in October.
As the council has only one councillor and a clerk remaining, it is inquorate and thus unable to continue operations or co-opt new councillors to fill the vacancies.
Medway Council’s legal and democratic services department has found an elegant solution. On Friday 13 December, a special meeting of the parish council will be held, at which three Medway councillors will be temporarily co-opted onto the council to allow new permanent councillors to be co-opted. Once this is done, the temporary councillors will resign.
Excitingly, eight residents have proposed to be new parish councillors, meaning the one remaining councillor and the three temporary councillors will have many options to fill the four slots. Among them are perennial option Bill Khatkar from Reform and Nick Craddy, one of the previous St Mary Hoo parish councillors who resigned in protest in October.
Isn’t democracy great?
In brief
🎄 Following the cancellation of the Christmas Dickens Festival last weekend, some extra events will occur in Rochester this weekend. The market will remain open longer, performers will be on the High Street, and a free park and ride will be available.
🎁 Rochester City Centre Forum managed to make the cancellation of Christmas Dickens Festival weirdly political, accusing Medway Council Leader Vince Maple of ‘insensitivity’ and a ‘staggering lack of judgment’ for daring to visit traders in his own ward while the event was cancelled.
🚑 South East Coast Ambulance Trust has become the first ambulance service in Europe to use digital alerting technology. The system, fitted to their vehicles, sends alerts to nearby vehicles using sat nav apps like Waze or Apple Maps to warn that they are approaching.
🖥️ Medway Community Healthcare (MCH) turned off its IT system last week due to ‘suspicious activity’. As a result, patients requiring blood tests had to turn up with a retro paper form.
🦷 Less than half of residents in Medway have access to an NHS dentist. Data from the Office for National Statistics’ Health Insight Survey shows that 45% of people in our towns receive dental care through the NHS.
🚌 A man has been flown to hospital by air ambulance after being hit by a bus at Chatham bus station. It’s the third serious incident involving buses hitting pedestrians in the facility since May last year.
🏗️ The Strood Civic Centre site redevelopment is set to gain approval next week. Medway Council officers recommend that the planning committee approve the plans to build 195 homes, a cafe/bar, and open space on the unused land.
🗣️ Medway Council debated cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance last week in the kind of exchange that demonstrates why so many people don’t trust politicians.
More Authority
The Singing Loins have been a mainstay of the Medway sound for over 40 years. We sat down with the two longest-serving members, Rob Shepherd and Chris Allen, in the Nags Head in Rochester. Over several pints, they talked about how original frontman Chris Broderick brought the band together, what makes something a Loins song, the next generation of Medway music, and lots more.
Footnotes
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: Digital Ash in a Digital Urn by Bright Eyes, Criminal Art Lovers by Northern Portrait, and The Great American Novel by Proper.
It isn't really clear where pedestrians can cross at Chatham bus station. There are differently-paved areas, but they're not zebra crossings. It seems to be at the discretion of bus drivers if they'll wave you across.
The MCH IT outage was more serious than just needing to use paper forms. Their systems were offline for almost a week which mean that anything that was managed online was affected. My wife has her INR tested at home weekly and then submitted via an app so the correct warfarin dose can be prescribed. This is essential for her so that she doesn't develop blood clots. However, as it was all done online the reading she submitted was never received. Plus all of her contact info was online as well so they couldn't get in touch. On top of that, their phone system is IP based so that was down as well, meaning we couldn't get hold of them. When we did finally get hold of them via email (on a checked and safe device apparently) my wife was told that they were going to have to manually go through every single patient record to make sure it wasn't corrupted and that the data was correct.