Frindsbury ‘misery’ finally arrives, brings out worst in everyone again
Plus Reform parks tank on Kelly's lawn, visit Kent attractions for free, and details of our Police and Crime Commissioner debate
Editor’s note: When the Washington Post added their slogan ‘Democracy Dies in the Darkness’ to their paper in 2017, it was met with some incredulity. Some accused the paper of doom-mongering or exaggerating the press's role in our society, but here, seven years on, it’s hard not to find truth in it. My earliest foray into local journalism was live tweeting Medway council meetings, something I started doing as journalists from actual news outlets stopped turning up to cover them. It shouldn’t be like that, but that is the reality across the country. The model for local news is broken, with local journalists reduced to re-typing press releases and churning out advertorials because that’s more profitable than spending weeks investigating the big story.
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Frindsbury ‘misery’ finally arrives, brings out worst in everyone again
When news first broke last month that Frindsbury Hill was to close for four months, it brought out the worst in everyone. Politicians shifted blame away from themselves, Medway Council had a typically chaotic response, and it even led to some superb Thick of It style photos.
Now, here we are a week into the closure. How is it going?
On the evidence of the first week, not too badly. While it was always going to be disruptive, traffic seemed to be moving about as well as could be expected.
Of course, it would never last. Once Medway Labour’s Cllr Tris Osborne took to Twitter to smugly comment that the misery had ‘failed to materialise’, it was inevitable the misery wouldn’t be far behind.
So it was that on Monday morning, everything went wrong.
Not one but two different ‘emergency’ works needed to take place, plunging both viable diversion routes into chaos. Notably, both works were deemed to be emergencies, which is helpful as the council promised no other works permits would be granted near the Frindsbury Hill area for the duration of the closure.
The incident on Frindsbury Road was a gas leak, so there is little to be done about that, although Rochester and Strood MP Kelly Tolhurst, who seems to be running a whole election campaign around Frindsbury Hill, suggested that there wasn’t a gas leak at all. However, it is unfortunate that the ‘road repair’ on Whitewall Road, Medway City Estate, seemed to consist of filling in a pothole that had been there for weeks. Obviously, the right time to rectify that emergency is in the Monday morning rush hour.
Medway Council’s communications regarding both incidents were abysmal. The authority only issued a statement after 5pm, hours after the Whitewall Road issue had been resolved.
This has been standard throughout, with sluggish information on the closure and its impacts since it was first announced. Residents and businesses were only notified about the closure shortly before it was due to begin, with the official line at one point being to let local drivers make their own way through the roads and hope for the best rather than set out an official diversion route.
After public complaints, official routes were put in place, and other mitigations were added, such as opening the Canal Road bus lane in Strood to relieve traffic. Not that this was clear to local residents. Last week, the Kent Messenger reported that the lane would be open for traffic heading to Medway City Estate, councillors on social media claimed it would be open in both directions, while Medway Council announced yesterday it would only be accessible for traffic leaving the estate.
Given the nature of the road, it is rational that it is only open in one direction. Medway Council confirmed today that no entry signage was only installed in one direction this morning, eight days into the closure. Given the chaotic communications and lack of signage of the site, it seems inevitable that some drivers will have driven through in the wrong direction, though Medway Council did confirm that no penalty charges would be issued for drivers going through since March 11.
Inevitably, questions will continue to be raised about just how on top of this portfolio holder Cllr Simon Curry actually is. Still, if there are no more ‘emergencies’, things might get a little easier from here.
One week down, 14 more to go.
Reform parks tank on Kelly’s lawn
In a move resembling the UKIP by-election period a decade ago, Reform UK have pitched up in Strood by plastering campaigning materials over a rotting shopfront.
The empty shop on the High Street has been decked out with an extensive list of Reform promises, many of which seem contradictory. Still, the beauty of being an upstart party is that you can promise the earth without ever having to deliver it.
As a result, voters in Strood can now marvel at Reform’s claims to wipe out waiting lists, provide cheaper energy, and find more GPs while at the same time lowering taxes and freezing immigration. Seems totally doable.
Whether the shop will be used rather than acting as a giant billboard on the High Street remains to be seen. Rochester and Strood candidate Daniel Dabin seems to be particularly active and is likely the force behind this, having previously organised a surreal event in Rochester in January. The move comes as part of increased activity from the party as they seek to make a mark on the upcoming General Election, including some increasingly questionable social media content.
Still, it is hard to deny that the party is impacting national polling, as their poll numbers steadily increase in line with the Conservatives’ own figures dropping. With Rochester and Strood looking set to be a battleground seat in the General Election later this year, an active Reform locally can only present another headache to Kelly Tolhurst’s increasingly fragile majority.
Join us for our next debate
Following on from our successful local election debate last year, we’re proud to host the Medway debate for the upcoming Kent Police and Crime Commissioner election.
Voters in Medway will be voting for who they want to oversee Kent’s police force on 2 May, so ahead of that, we’ll be holding a Medway debate on 17 April.
We’re delighted that all three announced candidates have confirmed they will take part. So we’ll be welcoming Matthew Scott (Conservative and current PCC), Lenny Rolles (Labour), and Graham Colley (Liberal Democrat) to the stage to answer questions submitted by you. If any other candidates are declared between now and the election, they will also be invited to participate.
Like our previous events, tickets are free, but booking is essential. You can give an optional donation when booking tickets to help us cover the cost of running the event, but it isn’t required.
When booking a ticket, you can submit a question to be asked of the candidates on the night. As this debate is focused on the election of the Kent Police and Crime Commissioner, questions covering policing, public safety, the role of the commissioner, and related subjects are more likely to be chosen. We can’t guarantee we’ll ask everything, but we’ll select as broad of a selection as possible.
Visit Kent attractions for free
Kent Big Weekend is an annual event that often seems to fly under the radar. Attractions across the country offer a limited number of free tickets during a weekend in April (20-21 this year), which you can win by entering a ballot. It’s fairly competitive but you can enter as many ballots as you like, and from personal experience, you usually get tickets for somewhere, even if it wasn’t your first choice.
The ballot for this year’s event has now started, and you can apply for tickets for up to 87 different locations across the county. Value varies quite dramatically from one site to the next, with something like Leeds Castle tickets being worth more than tickets to the Guildhall Museum in Rochester, which is free until next month anyway.
It’s a good opportunity to visit places you might not usually get to. Medway locations featured include the Copper Rivet Distillery, Diggerland, Chatham Historic Dockyard, and Rochester Castle, and there’s a lot more available a little further afield.
You can take a look at the full list of attractions on offer and enter ballots for tickets between now and 1 April on the Kent Big Weekend website.
In brief
🍽️ One in five Medway households has received support from the government’s Household Support Fund. The fund aims to help people cope with living costs through free school meals, supermarket vouchers, and energy cards.
🚕 Taxi fares are set to increase by £1 next month. The increase will go out to consultation this Thursday, and if no objections are received within two weeks, it will automatically come into effect. We first covered details of the changes being sought by taxi drivers last month.
🥘 Two new restaurants have opened on Rochester High Street this week: Olé Rochester has replaced Rico Sabor, offering tapas but hopefully without the questionable business decisions, while Amore, an Italian restaurant (a first for Rochester), has opened in the former Garden House Deli location.
😳 A delightfully unhinged story from Lordswood: One man is threatening to turn his house into an HMO for asylum seekers to' cause problems’ for Medway Council after they refused to put traffic calming on his street. Medway Council says there is no need as only 18-34 vehicles per hour use the street, and they have spent over 220 hours dealing with his demands. His neighbours seem thoroughly unimpressed, too. Top reporting all round.
💣 To end on a positive note, The Mirror speculates that Chatham could be on a list of potential targets for a Russian airstrike if war broke out between Russia and the West.
Can you help us?
🗣️ We want to speak to anyone who has worked for any of Medway’s three MPs over the last few years. We’re happy to speak off the record in the first instance.
Email hello@localauthority.news if you can help out with the above either on or off the record or if you have any stories that might interest our readers.
More Authority
Our paid supporters receive extra editions of Local Authority every week. Over the weekend, Steven interviewed Heather Haythornthwaite of The Hazelnut Press to discuss what brought her to Medway, why she got into printing, the council’s treatment of trees, and more.
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If you missed our Friday edition, we looked at the exciting new Medway Activity Book from local designer Esther Johnson, as well as a new Medway single from Venbee. We also reviewed the newly opened Gurkha Fire in Chatham, published our weekly event guide, and lots more.
Footnotes
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: Gentrified Chicken by The Muslims, Mysteries by Tigercats, Document by REM, and Daddy Issues by The Ballet.
Cracking edition of LA, I was enjoying it right up to the mention of a "first" Italian restaurant for Rochester! Really? There are at least three, two of which have been there (and very popular) for decades! Expect them to ask for apologies.