Medway's existential crisis

Plus 30% of children in Medway live in poverty, and Kelly Tolhurst 'scrutinises' net zero

Editor’s note: Sorry for the slight delay in today’s Local Authority reaching you, as a technical disaster lost pretty much the entire first draft, requiring the whole thing to be written again from scratch. Super fun way to spend a Friday night.

Medway's existential crisis

It’s long been an argument from those that oppose city status for Medway that Medway can’t be a city because it isn’t a real place.

Which, in a way, is kind of true.

There’s a River Medway, for sure.

But Medway the place that people live in is largely an artificial construct.

We have five towns and a bunch of villages and as the towns were loosely know as ‘The Medway Towns’, Medway became the logical name when creating a unitary authority for our area back in the late 1990s.

Since then, we’ve chugged along fairly nicely. Unitary authorities are an efficient way of doing local government, and it means our arrangements are simpler than the multi-tiered authorities that we left behind in the rest of Kent.

It hasn’t always been perfect, and only the most delusional Medwayite (?) would try and claim that. Years of mismanaged projects, a lack of strategic vision, and a financial black hole doesn’t paint our area in the best of lights.

But, for all of it’s flaws, our current system is one of the better options available. Medway is ruled by councillors entirely from Medway, and a broad strategy for our area can be mapped out without the competing demands that come from an entire county.

All of this faced an existential threat this week though, as Kent County Council began a process that eradicates Medway in it’s current form. It’s unlikely to get very far, but it’s worth exploring what’s on the table.

The national government loves to tinker with our democratic structures, and currently they are very excited about devolving powers to local cities and regions, giving those areas elected Mayors and a sweeping set of powers to control the big picture ideas in their areas.

They are also, in these hyper efficient times, very encouraging of existing council areas merging together to create new larger authorities.

And so, here we are, 25 years on from Medway splitting from Kent, talking about a new Kent and Medway combined authority.

Kent County Council seem especially eager to look at this model. In a way, it’s understandable. A new combined authority with an elected Mayor would bring new powers, and perhaps more crucially, a new way to raise revenues as the Mayor could claim additional council tax and business rates.

A combined authority with an elected Mayor would have control over Kent’s transport network, investment fund, public health, the duties of the Police and Crime Commissioner, and more.

Kent County Council have begun the process of planning for the new model, and seem eager to lobby the government to have the powers devolved to make it happen.

It seems that Medway Council are less eager on the idea, with Leader Cllr Vince Maple telling the KM that the plans are “simply not good enough”. Cllr Maple stressed that he supports devolved powers and closer working between authorities, but he doesn’t support the proposed model here.

Which, like Kent’s position, is understandable. Cllr Maple and his Labour administration have just taken control of Medway Council for the first time, and within weeks, there is talk of replacement. Medway Council was created because the needs of Medway were different to the rest of Kent, and it’s hard to see how that has changed in the quarter of a century since.

Only a cynic would suggest that the Conservative controlled Kent County Council are pushing a combined authority with Medway weeks after the Conservatives lost control of our towns, but it isn’t a great look.

It’s hard to know where any of this will end up. There is increased consolidation of local authorities, and previous suggestions have talked about Kent evolving into four separate unitarity authorities.

As it stands, Medway is likely too small to survive on it’s own for the long-term, but Kent is possibly too big. But for now, it seems we’re keeping the status quo, at least until all parties can agree on what the future should look like.

One person is eager for the new system though. Serial loser Nigel Farage has already declared that he’d consider running to be the new Mayor of Kent and Medway. So that’s something we can all potentially look forward to.

Nearly a third of Medway’s children live in poverty

Over 30% of children live in poverty, new data from End Child Poverty has uncovered.

Medway’s 30.6% of children living in poverty is slightly below the national rate of 31%, but is well above the south east figure of 25%.

The rate in Medway has been depressingly stable since 2014 when 30% of children were in poverty. This peaked at 31.8% in 2018/19, before falling back to the current figure in 2021/22, the most recent data set available.

Child poverty is rising across the south east, largely being driven by increased housing costs and the general increase in the cost of living.

Staggeringly, 84% of children living in poverty in Medway are in a household with at least one adult working, with disabled and ethnic minority households finding themselves more likely to be struggling.

There is no grand prognostication to be made about this, other than that it’s something that should shame those running a country where child poverty continues to rise. We need to do whatever we can to reduce that figure in Medway. And everywhere else, for that matter.

Kelly Tolhurst ‘scrutinises’ net zero

Not content with voting to allow water companies to dump raw sewage into our rivers and seas, Rochester and Strood MP Kelly Tolhurst broke cover this week and revealed herself as part of the climate-sceptic Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG).

The NZSG was set up in 2021 and is chaired by South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay, who is formerly of this parish, or maybe still is, who knows? Anyway, the group features several significant figures who used to be part of the European Research Group (ERG) of Conservative MPs who advocated for a hard Brexit. Given how splendidly that’s gone, it’s natural to raise an eyebrow at the interventions of the NZSG.

This week, the group sent a letter to the Telegraph calling for carbon levies on energy-intensive industries to be scrapped. NZSG chair Mackinlay has recently spoken in favour of expanding North Sea oil production and winding down solar and wind projects.

When challenged by climate website DeSmog on her signing of the letter, Kelly Tolhurst responded that she was broadly in support of reaching net zero but “there is not just one way to meet net zero and it is right to raise concerns over policy that could impact the competitiveness of the UK.” Hm.

Still, the letter finds Tolhurst in good company. Fellow signatories of the letter include Reclaim MP Andrew Bridgen, kicked out of the Conservative Party for comparing covid vaccines to the Holocaust. Also on the list was Scott Benton MP, currently suspended from the Conservatives for offering to leak confidential documents in a newspaper sting, climate change denier MP Sammy Wilson, and Minister for the 1800s Jacob Rees-Mogg.

In brief

🚧 The closure of a small section of the Lower Rainham Road is causing traffic chaos in Rainham. Which maybe says something about the state of our road infrastructure in Medway.

📦 The Evening Standard has written about a Londoner who has moved to Chatham. She doesn’t think the town centre is the prettiest but is otherwise complimentary.

🧘 Dockside Outlet Centre is seeking permission to add leisure and fitness units. This is despite there already being several in the vicinity.

🎮 Medway Gaming Festival is this weekend. Lots of video games and other activities all over Chatham Dockyard. We’ll be there plugging Local Authority and selling some merch so come say hi if you’re around…

Footnotes

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Music that soundtracked the creation of this newsletter: No Blues by Los Campesinos! and Tourist In This Town by Allison Crutchfield.