Gillingham Street Angels accuse Medway Council of making their work harder
Plus big development plan for Wainscott, another far-right political party campaigns in Medway, news in brief, and more
The Gillingham Street Angels is one of Medway’s most recognisable charities, seeing big growth across our towns in recent years. Now, they are accusing Medway Council of making their work more difficult. We take a look at what’s going on. Further down, we have news of an 800 home development north of Wainscott, a new far-right political party campaigning in Medway, news in brief, and more.
Gillingham Street Angels accuse Medway Council of making their work harder
The Gillingham Street Angels are one of Medway’s largest charities, providing food banks, homelessness support, clothing banks, fresh seafood, and other services and community provisions.
It is no secret that they have grown significantly from their origins, which has inevitably led to some people questioning the nature of their work and just where the line is between their charity and business operations. In our interview with Chief Executive Neil Charlick earlier this year, he spoke candidly about the costs and the difficulties in funding their charitable activities.
This week, in an unusual turn, Charlick and other members of the GSA team have penned a letter to Medway Council highlighting a deterioration in the relationship between the two organisations and accusing the council of making their work more difficult.
The three-page letter, seen by Local Authority, was sent to Medway councillors last week, setting out a litany of grievances about how GSA perceives itself as being treated.
These include:
Medway Council’s Highways Department telling GSA to move their Skinner Street food bank out of the road after nearby residents complained about the obstruction.
Medway Council moving on the GSA soup kitchen from Gillingham High Street.
A significant fall in funding from Medway Council.
A belief that GSA is viewed unfavourably by Medway Council and some partner organisations.
We have verified the first accusation about the Skinner Street food bank obstruction and have seen a letter dated last month from Medway Council. The letter warns GSA that their food bank is ‘causing a nuisance to other road users’ and threatens that a formal notice may follow if they continue to do so.
We asked Medway Council to confirm if they have requested that the soup kitchen move and if there are any changes in funding to GSA, but they did not respond to us before publication.
The Gillingham Street Angels have seen huge growth over recent years. In 2023, they recorded an income of £1.23m, up from £666,000 the year before. Equally, they have spent £1.12m in the same period, up from £475,000 the year before. Their grant income has grown from £276,000 to £306,000 during the same period, though it is unclear how much of that might have come from Medway Council.
The letter from GSA to Medway Council concludes by requesting a meeting with Medway Council Leader Vince Maple to attempt to resolve the issues, though it is unclear exactly what they expect to come out of this.
We contacted GSA Chief Executive Neil Charlick to ask him to confirm the existence of the letter and to offer his view on it, but he declined to comment at this point.
Things took an even stranger turn yesterday when the Gillingham Street Angels posted on social media to announce that they will be closing down their Rochester charity shop before Christmas, something else they managed to blame Medway Council for.
In this instance, they blamed the council’s red route scheme for ‘killing trade and donations to the shop’, suggesting another shop (presumably Rainham) is also at risk. This complaint seems somewhat more curious, given the Rochester shop isn’t on a red route and has a car park next door. It also raises questions about the business model of a shop that requires illegal parking to operate, but that’s another matter.
Speaking to KentOnline, Charlick said the shop was “no longer making any money”. Given Gillingham Street Angels registered shop income of £829,000 last year, it is remarkable how much impact the red route around the corner from the shop must have had on their business to make it no longer sustainable.
The social media post received a fair amount of pushback, leading to GSA deleting it and replacing it with a more restrained version that didn’t specifically blame the red routes.
What is clear is that there is certainly some animosity between the council and one of the area’s biggest charities. Medway Council Leader Vince Maple says he has agreed to GSA’s request for a meeting, so it will be interesting to see if the relationship can be returned to a more amicable position.
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800 homes proposed in big extension to Wainscott
As Medway stumbles toward getting on top of its housing crisis but still has no Local Plan in place, proposals from developers are coming in thick and fast. One of the largest recently appeared with a developer called Richborough proposing an 800-home development north of Wainscott.
This is a significant development of an agricultural site and would represent the first large-scale extension of the area north of the A289 relief road. The plans include a retail centre, a new school, new open spaces, older person homes, and 30% affordable homes. In theory, it’s development with the facilities that often aren’t included, but some questions remain within the plans.
As always, transport remains the biggest issue in this part of Medway. The A289 Hasted Road is often congested, particularly around the Four Elms roundabout. While this proposal does offer ‘improvements to the Four Elms Roundabout, including an integrated left turn lane’, it is unclear how this would relieve new traffic from the development. An integrated left turn lane would presumably be towards Four Elms Hill, which, while overdue, doesn’t necessarily serve this development. Elsewhere, the lack of east-facing sliproads on the nearby A289 junction would direct most traffic toward Gravesend and London rather than giving a path into Strood or wider Medway without driving through the centre of Wainscott.
An informal consultation is underway for the proposals, which you can participate in until 11 December. A finalised plan will follow alongside a formal planning application to Medway Council in the coming months.
New far-right party on the block
It’s hard to keep count of all of the right-wing parties operating in Medway. During the last elections, on top of the obligatory Conservative and Reform candidates, we had representatives of the SDP, the Heritage Party, and the CPA all on the ballots.
Of course, this is how things work in a democracy. For years, splintering was the skill of the left, but now, there are various flavours of right-wing parties to suit all tastes.
Last week, a new one seemed to pop up in Medway, with a reader in Strood sharing that they had this leaflet from the 'National Housing Party’ through their door. In theory, a party focusing on housing might be welcome, but many other policies are on display, too.
The NHP want to exit the UN Refugee Convention, block UK citizenship for foreign nationals, oppose Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, Ultra Low Emission Zones, electric cars, Net Zero targets, something about Jesus, and, in the most surreal policy on the rear of the pages above, asset seizure from foreign nationals in the UK. Truly quite remarkable. Hope Not Hate describes the party as ‘Nazi, fascist and ethnosocialist.’
What isn’t here is any policy for Medway. We’ve struggled to identify a local party branch, so it appears unlikely they’ll be troubling the electorate soon. Still, someone in Strood was enthusiastic enough to stop shoving these through letterboxes.
In brief
🚓 The Woodland Tavern pub in Gillingham is set to have its licence reviewed next week after Kent Police accused it of not doing enough to prevent crime. In an unusual move, the freeholder of the pub, Ei Group, has supported the Kent Police position in wanting the licensee removed from the premises.
🗳️ A couple of interesting votes in parliament this week:
On the Assisted Dying Bill last week, Rochester and Strood MP Lauren Edwards and Chatham and Aylesford MP Tristan Osborne voted for the plans. At the same time, Gillingham and Rainham MP Naushabah Khan opposed it.
Today, MPs rather unexpectedly voted in favour of a motion supporting Proportional Representation. It likely won’t come to anything, but it is worth noting that Lauren Edwards opposed the move, while Osborne and Khan did not vote.
🏦 Halifax in Chatham will close for refurbishment from 31 December until 6 March. Weirdly, they are directing customers to use the Gravesend branch during the closure, despite the Gillingham one remaining open until the Chatham work is complete.
💷 Strood Community Project has closed following a sudden backdated rent increase, leaving them £20,000 in arrears. It seems unclear how that can be legal, but they seem to accept it.
🚒 It’s been a big week for fire:
Five fire engines tackled a blaze at Oliver’s on Rochester High Street yesterday.
Nucleus Arts in Chatham High Street is temporarily closed after a fire in one of their studio blocks.
🔮 Finally, the clairvoyance evening at Allhallows Village Hall has been cancelled due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’:
More Authority
For our weekend interview, we spoke to Rachel Garrick. Rachel was once a Medway Labour activist who stood in Rochester West against Kelly Tolhurst. She now lives back in her homeland of Wales. We discussed what brought her to Medway, what took her back to Wales, why she stopped supporting Jeremy Corbyn, finding Mark Reckless as her representative when she moved back across the border and the fight for Welsh independence.
Footnotes
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: Prioritise Pleasure by Self Esteem, Fuck These Fuckin Fascists by The Muslims, and Revolution Girl Style Now by Bikini Kill.
I'm interested to know why Gillingham Street Angels, with all their buildings aren't offering one of those to give out food in. With the big buildings they have, one of which is in Gillingham itself, it wouldn't be too much to move the stuff being sold in that building to another to sell and making that a permanent fixture for people to collect food from. People could wait inside too, specifically in the winter months - they are doing some good work, but are starting to be seen by residents as more of a business than a charity because they have charity shops popping up all over Medway and not much is advertised of their other work other than the 5 daily food bank. Where that is based is also near a school and could cause disruptions.
Red Routes is an interesting one regarding their shops in Rochester and I said the other day, be interesting to know how they got the figures from that but also be interesting to know whether they have asked, listened and spoken to Medway residents about how they are being perceived.
I've received help from GSA and others in the past when I've been struggling however as time goes on, you can see the work others are doing and achieving to get rid of poverty and Homelessness in Medway - One Big Family providing shelters and now supported accommodation as well as their weekly soup kitchen, Medway Street Angels offering drug services and working with Medway Council as well as their soup kitchens, Time For The Homeless doing their soup kitchens and raising awareness, Caring Hands still providing meals 5 days a week but working with Medway Council to provide supported accommodation - these are all charities that have grown and none have charity shops - not saying charity shops are a bad idea at all but the scale of the operation for them has people questioning whether this organisation may have lost it's way a bit.
Very good read, thanks and just to point out the Gillingham Halifax is staying open until the refit in Chatham branch is finished, well I hope so, because that's what they told me