Gibraltar Farm development heading for green light
Gibraltar Farm development heading for green light
Plus new MPs reveal their funding, council black hole grows, news in brief, and more
There have been few more controversial developments in Medway than the 450 homes proposed for Gibraltar Farm between Lordswood and Hempstead. Now, after years of wrangling, it looks set to finally get the green light. We look at what it might mean. Further down, we have news of the funding received by our new MPs, more worrying signs for Medway Council’s budget, our news in brief section, and more.
Gibraltar Farm development heading for green light
Years of wrangling over a controversial housing development look set to end next week, with Medway's planning committee set to approve the 450-home Gibraltar Farm development between Lordswood and Hempstead.
The site has been contentious for years, with nearly 800 members of the public objecting to the plans, along with various organisations and MPs. Previous versions of the plans have been refused in the past, but this version looks set to get the go ahead as Medway Council’s planning officers recommend it for approval.
The site’s 450 homes are a mix of types, from one-bedroom flats to five-bedroom houses, with 25% of them required to be affordable. Given its remote location, the plans also include a new retail parade, a nursery, open spaces, a potential bus loop, and new cycle and pedestrian connections.
Despite its proximity to Lordswood, under the initial proposals, the only vehicular access is via the Hempstead end of the development. This is largely due to previous Medway Council administrations refusing access on the Lordswood side, as they own a strip of required land and refused access to the developers. Whether the new administration will be more open to releasing the ‘ransom strip’ remains to be seen.
Concerns have been raised about the impact of traffic on the site's east side, particularly regarding the connection between the edge of Hempstead and Hoath Way. These areas regularly face traffic congestion already. To mitigate somewhat, the plans do include provision for additional lane capacity around Hoath Way and the M2 motorway junction and some minor improvements elsewhere, but they seem like the bare minimum that might be required.
Medway Council are at least set to extract significant money from the developer to put into local infrastructure and facilities. The Section 106 developer contribution list extends to £6.5m, including:
£1.61m for SEND education provision
£1m for mainstream education provision
£830,000 for nursery provision
£500,000 for open spaces
£460,000 for footpaths and cycle paths
£380,000 for health service capacity
£370,000 for road improvements
£260,000 for bus provision
Of course, none of this is likely to appease those who have spent years fighting the development, particularly those in the immediately surrounding area. The issues are compounded by the site's proximity to Maidstone Borough Council’s significant Lidsing Garden Village development to the southeast of the site, which is likely to put further pressure on local services given its proximity to Medway and lack of proximity to Maidstone.
Still, we are in the midst of a housing crisis that Medway seems unable to manage, and 450 homes will help us meet our housing targets.
How many years before anything gets built is another matter entirely, though.
Medway Council’s planning committee will discuss the Gibraltar Farm development proposals next Wednesday. You can read the full report on the development here.
New MPs reveal their funding
With Labour sweeping to victory both nationally and across Medway’s three constituencies in the General Election last month, it’s time to start looking at how much funding they received for their campaign and from whom.
This week, the first update of the Register of Members' Financial Interests was published, giving us insight into the funding behind our three MPs. Or, in the case of one, the lack thereof.
Rochester and Strood MP and noted elbower of homeless people Lauren Edwards received £37,000 in donations to the local Labour Party to support her campaign.
Labour thinktank Labour Together contributed £10,000, Unite the Union threw in £5,000, the Medway Labour Group found £2,000 down the back of the sofa, and local business Paktech Ltd came up with £5,000.
The biggest figure came from one individual: Gary Lubner threw £15,000 in Edwards’ pot. While perhaps not a household name, Lubner is Autoglass's former boss and the largest individual donor to the party during this election, contributing £4.5m in total.
Over in Gillingham and Rainham, Naushabah Khan received a similar amount, with £35,000 making it into her pot.
Gary Lubner pops up here again with another £15,000 donation. Elsewhere, the GMB Union contributed £7,000, Labour Together gave a measly £5,000, Gillingham Labour Club gave £4,000, the Medway Labour Group found £2,000 here too, and Unison threw in another £2,000.
Then there’s Tristan Osborne in Chatham and Aylesford. It was no secret that the constituency wasn’t a target, even when it began to look winnable, and that is starkly clear in the numbers.
Osborne received a grand total of £3,575 in funding. The biggest share of this (£2,375) came from The Shaw Partnership, a business registered to former Chatham and Aylesford MP Jonathan Shaw, while the Medway Labour Group added £1,200. And that’s it. No unions, no think tanks, no big donors.
This does leave a question about just how much difference all this money makes. While clearly useful in marginals, Labour took all three Medway constituencies with similar swings, even though one of the seats had a tenth of the budget of the others.
One amusing aside from these register entries is the way in which all three declared their Medway councillor allowances. While all three remain councillors for now, they have all chosen not to take their allowance. The declaration for their final payments is rather revealing, though.
While all three declare similar amounts as portfolio holders within Medway Council’s administration, Naushabah Khan and Tristan Osborne list the hours spent on the role as 80 per month. For a busy portfolio holder and diligent local councillor, this doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable. So it is curious that Lauren Edwards, for the same amount of money, declared that it was 25 hours of work instead.
There are very different workloads within the Medway Council Cabinet, apparently.
Council budget black hole grows
We’ve written extensively about the abyss that Medway Council has been staring into financially and how getting through this year was just the first stage of a difficult process.
This week, Medway Council financial documents starkly highlighted just how dire the situation is. While the government allowed Medway Council to use emergency borrowing powers to balance the budget this year, future years will require the same interventions as money is rapidly disappearing.
Between now and 2028, Medway Council's budget gap looks set to rise to over £140m, or, more optimistically, a mere £114m with emergency financial support.
Of course, these kinds of figures aren’t remotely sustainable. Medway Council faces a gap of £24m to £31m yearly over the next four years. However much you try and trim budgets, you aren’t going to bridge that sort of gap.
Local councils across the country are in very difficult positions in terms of financial squeeze, and many will have been hoping for a better funding settlement under the new government. So far, though, there is little sign of that materialising.
In the meantime, councils like Medway stumble year after year with fewer funds than they actually need to cover the pretty basic services. They make unpalatable cuts, raise council taxes, and go cap in hand to the government every year to survive.
This clearly isn’t a viable long-term solution, but until the central government figures out how to fund local councils, Medway Council will continue staring into the abyss, and the rest of us will face poorer and poorer services as a result.
In brief
🎾 Plans have been submitted to convert the Machine Shop 8 frame at Chatham Dockside into a Padel tennis centre with three restaurant units. The application is set to be decided in October.
🧪 The Environment Agency has found dangerous levels of cancer-causing chemicals in the River Medway. The news follows bitter arguments about the river's state, but few seem to have any solutions for the problem. We also wrote about sewage dumping in our river a few months ago.
🚑 Medway Hospital has the shortest handover times from ambulances to A&E. Over the summer, the average time was 12 minutes.
🗳️ There is a vacancy on High Halstow Parish Council. If you’re interested in filling it, you must submit nomination papers to Medway Council by the end of next week.
🔥 There was a fire at Chatham Docks on Saturday night. The blaze at a freight station in the complex is believed to be accidental.
🚓 A Gillingham man has been jailed for threatening to burn down five mosques and kill Muslims. He was arrested within days of making the threats and sentenced to two and a half years.
🚓 Another Gillingham man has been jailed after smearing bacon on a mosque, using racial slurs, and making threats. The criminal mastermind live streamed everything, bragged that he “could get away with it”, and was arrested within days.
More Authority
This week's Sunday interview was with Ben Hopkins, a music writer, former film critic, and our very own Gillingham FC columnist. We discussed how he came to support Gillingham, how ghostwriting works, and his dislike of superhero films.
Last week, we also visited The Garage Museum, a remarkable collection of automotive ephemera hidden in a corner of Rochester Airport. We talked to its owner, Trevor Hoare, about how the museum came to be and his plans for the future.
Footnotes
Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: You Can Play These Songs With Chords by Death Cab For Cutie, Yucky Duster by Yucky Duster, and 6.9 Love Songs by The Just Joans.