More ANPR traffic cameras coming to Medway
Plus three new General Election candidates, Cozenton Park Sports Centre prices, news in brief, and more
Medway Council are big fans of ANPR traffic cameras, launching a number of moving traffic offence locations, School Streets, and Red Routes in the past few months. Now, they are proposing to enforce restrictions using the cameras at 17 more sites across our towns. We’ve got the details below. Further down, we’ve got news of three new General Election candidates in Medway, details on the prices at Cozenton Park Sports Centre, our news in brief section, and more.
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More ANPR traffic cameras coming to Medway
If the Medway Labour administration has achieved one thing since taking power last year, it’s putting up a lot of traffic cameras. Moving traffic offences started being enforced in seven locations in February. This was quickly followed by a rollout of the School Streets scheme, blocking vehicles from roads outside of schools during peak hours. Finally, just this week, Medway’s three Red Route areas were switched on, with cameras in position and happy to fine anyone stopping illegally within them.
Now, they seem to have a taste for it, with 17 new sites being proposed for moving traffic enforcement.
No new measures are being proposed. Instead, Medway Council is seeking to enforce the existing measures more robustly. Most of the sites are yellow box junctions on major roads or pedestrianised high streets.
The 17 proposed locations are:
Chatham High Street - motor vehicle restriction (pedestrian zone). Access point from Batchelor Street, Chatham - no motor vehicles restriction
Whittaker Street/High Street, Chatham, in connection to the above (Chatham High Street) - no entry restriction
Chatham High Street (access point from Clover Street, Chatham) - no entry restriction
Rochester High Street junction with Star Hill, Rochester - right turn ban
Gillingham High Street (Green Street access point to Gillingham High Street) - no entry restriction
Gillingham High Street (Kings Street, access onto Gillingham High Street) - no entry restriction
Gillingham High Street (James Street access points to Gillingham High Street) - no entry restriction
A2 High Street junction with B2002 Station Road, Strood - yellow box junction
Chatham Hill junction with Luton Road, Chatham - yellow box junction
Maidstone Road, Chatham, Bus Interchange - yellow box junction
A2 Corporation Street junction with Esplanade, Rochester - yellow box junction
Station Road junction with Friary Place, Strood - yellow box junction
A2 London Road junction with Gravesend Road, Strood - yellow box junction
A2 High Street, Strood junction with Esplanade, Strood - yellow box junction
A2 Corporation Street junction with Gas House Road, Rochester - yellow box junction
A2 Corporation Street junction with Bardell Terrace - yellow box junction
A2 junction with Castle View Road, Strood - yellow box junction.
Most of these locations shouldn’t be particularly controversial. Keeping vehicles out of a pedestrianised high street feels like an obvious move, and most of the yellow box junctions on major roads seem reasonable for enforcement.
One thing that is notable, though, is that no new enforcement locations are proposed for Rainham despite there being several in each of the other towns. Local councillors in Rainham, the MP, and some local residents have bitterly fought for the right to park illegally in their town, and it seems they will be spared new measures in this round at least. This is kind of ironic, as the yellow box junction at the bottom of Mierscourt Road would be a good spot, given how congested it gets during peak hours. Maybe that’s one for a future round, though.
If you have any strong views on these proposed enforcement areas, Medway Council would love to hear from you. The consultation is now open and will run until 26 June.
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General Election lumbers closer with new candidates
With a General Election on the horizon that is apparently, really, truly happening at some point within the next eight months or so, the parties are continuing to get their candidates in place. This week, three new candidates from two different parties declared themselves.
Least surprisingly, the Green Party found a candidate for Gillingham and Rainham after previously announcing their candidates for Rochester and Strood as well as Chatham and Aylesford. Local activist Kate Belmonte will fight for the seat, having previously fought for the party in local council elections. When announcing her candidacy, the party stated that ‘Kate wants to bring focus to the provision of homes, health and education for all’, which is great if you can ignore the fact she fought against council houses being built in Twydall in 2021.
More surprising candidate news came from the Workers Party of Britain, the socialist and socially conservative party set up and led by George Galloway, who recently won the Rochdale by-election. Following that victory, Galloway claimed the party would contest every seat, and now they have announced candidates for two of the Medway seats. Gillingham and Rainham will be fought by Laid Ghellab, who appears to be a model, while Rochester and Strood will be contested by John Innes, who we don’t know much about, but he presumably isn’t the compost guy.
This is what each constituency current looks like candidate wise:
Chatham and Aylesford: Nicolas Chan (Lib Dem), Thomas Mallon (Reform), Steve Tanner (SDP), Kim Winterbottom (Green). Presumably, the Conservatives and Labour will bother to select candidates at some point..
Gillingham and Rainham: Kate Belmonte (Green), Stuart Bourne (Lib Dem), Laid Ghellab (Workers), Naushabah Khan (Labour), Rizvi Rawoof (Reform), Peter Wheeler (SDP). One assumes Rehman Chishti (Conservative) is standing again, but there’s been no official word..
Rochester and Strood: Graham Colley (Lib Dem), Daniel Dabin (Reform), Lauren Edwards (Labour), John Innes (Workers), Cat Jamieson (Green), Kelly Tolhurst (Conservative).
Cozenton Park feels a bit expensive
With Medway Council announcing that the shiny new Cozenton Park Sports Centre (and definitely not Splashes) will open on 17 July, there’s not long to go before the people of Rainham can start swimming once again.
What seems to have taken some by surprise, though, is that the pool is rather more expensive than they were expecting, particularly given the council’s recent abolition of free swimming for under-16s and over-60s.
According to the prices released this week, standard swimming in a mundane lane pool will cost the same as other centres in Medway (£7.55 for adults and £5.40 for children, with a million caveats about memberships or additional admission fees), the prices for ‘Family Fun Splash’ are a tad higher.
For those not purchasing a membership or annual pass to use the facilities, access to the leisure pool with the wave machine and flume will cost £12.50 for adults and £10.35 for children. Which does seem like quite a lot for a swimming session.
Never ones to miss an opportunity to put out a press release about water, the Medway Lib Dems have crunched the numbers and claim it will cost £45.70 for a family of four to visit the centre, while similar pools cost a lot less in Sittingbourne (£18.70) and Maidstone (£28.10).
It will be interesting to see the uptake of the new Cozenton Park centre once it opens, and how far it’ll go towards covering the £24m it cost to build.
In brief
⚓ The recently deferred planning application for Basin3 in Chatham Docks will return to planning committee next week. It was previously removed from the agenda following legal challenges to the process, which has led to Medway Council slightly tweaking its report before it comes before the committee next Thursday.
⚽ Gillingham Football Club has released the list of players who will be staying with the team next season and those who will be leaving. Around half of the current team is leaving in one form or another as the team seeks a more serious promotion push next season.
👑 Medway has a new Mayor, with Cllr Marian Nestorov taking over the role following last week’s full council meeting. Nestorov is the first Mayor chosen under the new points-based system, which will see the role switch between different political groups. It also follows a strong year for former Mayor Nina Gurung, who impressively threw herself into the role over the past 12 months.
🐝 If you spot an Asian hornet, a delightful species that seems to be moving into Kent, you are urged to report it. The frankly terrifying-looking species saw a surge in the number of sightings in 2023.
🏚️ A planning application has been submitted to convert the former Hen & Chickens pub in Luton into 10 one-bedroom flats. The plans include restoring the facade of the pub and represent an increase from a six-flat plan previously submitted.
🚄 There are no plans to bring Eurostar services back to Ebbsfleet ‘International’ or Ashford ‘International’. The services were cut in 2020 and don’t seem to be coming back anytime soon.
🥙 Turkuaz, a new Turkish restaurant in Medway Valley Park, Strood, has pledged to “bring the taste of London to Kent”. We’d probably have gone for the taste of Turkey ourselves, but maybe that’s why we aren’t in hospitality.
More Authority
There’s been a great response to our article on Friday about Jake Cox, the Medway barber putting men’s mental health at the heart of what he does. It’s a great read with a fascinating entrepreneur who is trying to do something important.
No ordinary barber
Jake Cox is no ordinary barber. Operating out of a room at the back of a salon on St. Mary’s Island, he focuses on providing a safe space for men to talk about their mental health while also giving them a great haircut. Now, he’s branching out to teach more barbers how to do the same. We’ve been finding out more.
We also had a strong response to our interview on Sunday with independent councillor Ron Sands. Ron has been on quite the political journey, but his Hoo Peninsula home has always been at the heart of it, which he has now represented for five years.
“I just want them to realise what they've got”
Ron Sands is an independent councillor for Hoo St Werburgh and High Halstow, having first been elected to the old Peninsula ward in 2019. Steven went to the cafe at Deangate Ridge to talk to Cllr Sands about his time in the army, being a candidate for the English Democrats, why he found electoral success as an independent, and whether any more councillors will join the Independent Group.
Footnotes
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: Superstar by Caroline Rose, House Without a View by Lande Hekt, and re:member by Ólafur Arnalds.
If you mean we’re the party who prioritises keeping our river clean and our children safe and healthy, then I’m more than happy to keep banging on about water 😉
For reference, whatever the skill of the photographer, yellow-legged hornets (there are all sorts in Asia, so it’s a dumb name) are smaller than our lovely European hornets. At present, you’re unlikely to come across them in the street.
As a rule of thumb, if a big waspy-looking thing isn’t mostly black, then it isn’t one. And if it is, it still might be something else.