Medway Council issues over £2m in traffic fines in first year
Nearly 35,000 fines issued in first year of School Streets and Moving Traffic Offences schemes, plus third of blue badges used wrongly, Brook Theatre to reopen two years late, news in brief, and more
Medway Council has issued fines worth over £2m from the first year of new traffic enforcement powers, data obtained exclusively by Local Authority can reveal. We’ve got the full details below. Further down, we have news on how one third of blue badges in Medway are potentially being used wrongly, word that the Brook Theatre might reopen two years late, news in brief, and more
Medway Council issues over £2m in traffic fines in first year
Nearly 35,000 fines were issued in the first year of Medway Council enforcing Moving Traffic Offences and School Streets across Medway.
Data obtained by Local Authority revealed the remarkable figure, which means over £2m of fines have been issued in just the first year of operation.
Medway Council began enforcing Moving Traffic Offences at seven locations in February 2024, and the same number of School Streets were launched in March 2024.
Most sites within each scheme have generated thousands of fines in their first year of operation, with one location seeing a fine issued for every two minutes of operation in the second half of the year.
In the first year of enforcing Moving Traffic Offences, 17,821 Penalty Charge Notices have been issued. This figure considers that all drivers breaching the rules in the first six months of the scheme were issued a warning notice rather than a fine, meaning numbers will likely be higher in subsequent years.
The figures for each location are as follows:
Rochester High St entering pedestrian zone - 4,757 fines issued
Orchard Street, Rainham no right turn - 4,393 fines issued
A2 Rainham Road, Gillingham yellow box - 4,089 fines issued
Gillingham High St no entry - 2,239 fines issued
Cuxton Road, Strood yellow box - 1,291 fines issued
Chatham High St no entry - 797 fines issued
Gibraltar Hill, Chatham yellow box - 763 fines issued
Chatham Hill yellow box - 580 fines issued
The most remarkable location here is the figure of vehicles entering the Rochester High Street pedestrian zone. Given that the restriction is only in place for six hours on a Saturday and at no other time, 180 drivers have been caught at the location every week, clocking in at one driver every two minutes. This will inevitably reignite safety concerns about the decision to remove the chain that used to stop vehicles from entering the High Street during restricted periods. Medway Council argued that the cameras were about safety rather than generating income. Still, if cars are driving into a pedestrian zone every two minutes, it does raise questions about just how safe this system can truly be.
Each offence carries a fine of £60, meaning that Medway Council has issued £1,069,260 in fines from these seven locations on paper. Of course, things aren’t quite so simple, as drivers caught can pay a reduced fine by paying quickly, and some will have inevitably appealed and won. Still, given the scheme cost £695,000 to implement, Medway Council is heading into the second year of the scheme with a nice little earner on their hands.
A similar picture can be found in the data for the first year of School Street enforcement in Medway. 16,950 fines have been issued to vehicles entering the temporary pedestrian zones, a notable figure given enforcement is only carried out for roughly two hours each day at each location and only during term time.
The figures for each school are as follows:
Burnt Oak Primary School, Gillingham - 7,604 fines issued
Phoenix Primary School, Chatham - 4,138 fines issued
Greenvale Primary School, Chatham - 2,538 fines issued
Miers Court Primary School, Rainham - 1,327 fines issued
St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, Gillingham - 639 fines issued
St Thomas More Catholic Primary School, Walderslade - 557 fines issued
St Peter’s Infant School, Rochester - 147 fines issued
As expected, the figure for Burnt Oak Primary School is the highest proportion of School Street fines, located on Richmond Road, a busy through route in Gillingham. Figures for the second half of the year suggest a driver is entering the zone roughly every minute during the hours of operation. This clearly generates a significant number of fines but does not necessarily have the desired effect of reducing the number of vehicles outside the school.
The penalty for entering a School Street during the restricted period is a £70 fine, meaning Medway Council has issued £1,186,350 at these locations in the first year of operation. As mentioned above, the usual caveats about the amount of money actually raised still apply here, but it is likely to be a significant figure.
While implementing red routes hasn’t seemingly delivered the income that Medway Council might have expected, Moving Traffic Offences and School Streets have punched well above their weight during the first year. Perhaps it should be no surprise that Medway Council have introduced several new locations in recent months, with more to follow in the future.
Have a story you think we should be covering? Get in touch via hello(at)localauthority(dot)news - we’re always happy to talk off the record in the first instance…
Third of blue badges found to be used wrongly in Medway
Occasionally, we receive a press release that raises more questions than answers. We recently received one from Medway Council about a recent crackdown by Medway Council Civil Enforcement Officers and Counter Fraud Officers on people using blue badges for disabled people wrongly. Officers carried out a series of spot checks on blue badge users between March and April and found that over a third of blue badges were being used incorrectly.
This number seemed almost unbelievably high, so we asked Medway Council to check the data, and they confirmed it to be accurate. Over a few days, officers conducted spot checks on more than 100 blue badges and found that over a third of them were being used incorrectly in one form or another.
24 blue badges were confiscated because they had either been reported lost or stolen or were forged, and another 12 were being misused, for example when a family member uses the badge without the disabled badge holder being present.
Medway Council told Local Authority that this is the first time such enforcement action had been undertaken, and perhaps we’re naive. Still, it feels exceedingly high that only two in three blue badges are being used correctly. Given the figures, one can only assume that Medway Council will be looking to carry out further such actions in the future.
Brook Theatre might reopen two years late
When the Brook Theatre in Chatham closed in April 2023 to bring it up to modern standards and make it accessible, it was supposed to take a couple of years to complete, with the building reopening to the public in 2025.
So, where are we?
A long way away, if an announcement from Medway Council this week is anything to go by, where they confirmed that works are set to begin on the building this summer, with an aim to reopen in 2027.
Inevitably, this raises questions about why the theatre had to close two years ago if work was only starting now. Medway Council set out that work has been going on behind the scenes, including surveys and a 10-month procurement process to find a contractor to carry out the work. It is right to ensure that the work is carried out properly by the right team, but it seems odd that this wasn’t built into the original timescale, and now means Medway will be without its only interesting publicly owned theatre for four years.
Still, with a bit of luck, the theatre will throw open its doors once again just two years later than it was supposed to.
In brief
🏪 Licensing Hearing Panels are becoming a regular occurrence in Medway as the council tries to limit the impact of alcohol-licensed premises in town centres. Next week will see applications for a new convenience store on New Road in Chatham and an incredibly optimistic venue in Strood that wants to open until 3am at the weekend.
🏗️ Two blocks consisting of nine flats could be built on the junction of Canterbury Street and Nelson Road in Gillingham under a new planning application. The site is currently unoccupied, having previously served as a builder’s yard, industrial units, and, more recently, a church.
🦆 The Medway estuary has been identified as one of the most at risk of losing essential habitats. A study by Nottingham Trent University said the area was at risk from rising seas, lower summer river levels and man-made barriers.
🌳 Independent Group councillor Michael Pearce is campaigning to save five old oak trees on Christmas Lane in High Halstow. The trees are currently under threat as part of a potential 760-home development to the east of the village, where they stand in the way of road and footpath widening planned by developer Redrow.
More Authority
For our weekend interview, we sat down with Natalie Tyler and Matilda Flood, newly minted directors of Medwayish CIC (formerly of this parish), who are working with a talented community of artists, makers, and creatives to design and sell products that tell the stories of our towns and people.
"I just feel really passionate about where I live"
Medwayish is a Community Interest Company working with a talented community of local artists, makers, and creatives to design and sell products that tell the stories of our towns and people. Steven met new directors, Natalie Tyler and Matilda Flood, at Beantown in Rochester to talk about the project, what brought Natalie to Medway, what creative projects they are taking part in, and why they got involved with Medwayish in the first place.
Over on our sister Kent Current title, we interviewed Chatham and Aylesford MP Tristan Osborne about his election win, Reform's recent success, his social media usage, and lots more.
…and finally…
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Footnotes
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: Allo Darlin’ by Allo Darlin’, Disenchanted Hearts Unite by Tullycraft, and Compliments Please by Self Esteem.
We got a fine on Richmond Road, unaware that it's a school street. Shan't be taking the cat to the vet for an early appointment that way again.