Over 2,000 School Streets fines issued in first six months
Plus hundreds of homes set for approval, the disappearing advertising van, news in brief, and more
Six months into Medway Council’s School Streets scheme to restrict traffic around schools, more than 2,000 drivers have been fined for flouting the rules, with thousands more receiving warning notices. We’ve got the full details below. Further down, we have news on many planning applications for houses recommended for approval by Medway Council, the baffling tale of the disappearing van, news in brief, and more.
Over 2,000 School Streets fines issued in first six months
It’s been a little over six months since Medway Council launched its School Streets scheme at primary schools across Medway. The scheme restricts vehicles from entering streets immediately around selected schools during the morning drop-off and afternoon collection. In principle, this is to make the areas safer for children, but it also appears to be a nice little earner for the council.
Figures obtained by Local Authority show that over 2,000 Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) and more than 10,000 warning notices have been issued since the scheme's launch in March.
For the first six months of the scheme, first-time offenders received a warning notice, with PCNs only being issued to repeat offenders. Given that the scheme doesn’t operate anytime other than a couple of hours on school days (it isn’t in operation on weekends or during school holidays), the fines and warnings being issued are rather high.
The full figures for each location in the six-month window:
Burnt Oak Primary School, Gillingham - 932 PCNs, 5,871 warning notices
Greenvale Primary School, Chatham - 238 PCNs, 1,310 warning notices
Miers Court Primary School, Rainham - 380 PCNs, 959 warning notices
Phoenix Primary School, Chatham - 347 PCNs, 2,130 warning notices
St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, Gillingham - 13 PCNs, 89 warning notices
St Peter’s Infant School, Rochester - 34 PCNs, 158 warning notices
St Thomas More Catholic Primary School, Walderslade - 101 PCNs, 350 warning notices
Unsurprisingly, the camera on Richmond Road outside Burnt Oak Primary School in Gillingham captured the most offenders, being the only School Street on a fairly significant through road. Outside of a handful of schools, though, several have proved rather fruitful in catching vehicles where they shouldn’t be, which raises inevitable questions about the ability of motorists in Medway to read road signs and warning letters.
Inevitably, this is proving rather lucrative for Medway Council.
A standard fine for these offences is £70, which would suggest an income of over £143,000 in the first six months of the scheme. As usual, things aren’t quite as straightforward as that. People paying within 21 days see their fines reduced to £35.
Some people will inevitably also appeal their fines. We didn’t bother asking Medway Council for this data, as when we made a similar request previously, they told us their system was too crap to be able to pull that data out.
The School Streets scheme cost £690,000 to setup, but it seems it is well on the way to paying for itself. The income is only likely to rise further, as Medway Council are currently consulting on nine new locations for similar enforcement.
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Hundreds of homes set for approval
Next week, we will see the next Medway Council’s planning committee meeting. Assuming a rogue vice chair doesn’t try to derail proceedings again, there are a lot of new developments possibly getting the go-ahead.
Seven housing developments are recommended for approval by council officers, including:
44 homes at the Fenn Bell Inn site in St Mary Hoo. This has been a controversial application, and at a previous attempt, councillors were unsure enough to visit the current land/pub/zoo to examine the area in person. Hopefully, they will be able to make up their minds this time around.
34 homes in Grain. This has also been controversial in the local community, but it’s a rare 100% affordable development, so likely to get the nod.
88 homes on Maidstone Road in Hempstead. This is a rather isolated site directly opposite the former commuter car park from which the council is fighting to remove travellers. It includes 25% provision of affordable housing.
45 homes in Cliffe Woods. Also controversial, also includes 25% affordable provision.
26 flats on Broomhill Road in Strood. The site is currently one house and an old quarry and would see the site fully redeveloped.
Overall, 245 new homes are recommended for approval at next week’s committee meeting. Whether or not they will all be remains to be seen, but if Medway Council keeps up this kind of momentum, they just might manage to meet their housing target after all.
Bailiffs2You
If you’ve travelled around Medway, there’s a good chance you’ve spotted a truck advertising the car and van hire firm Hire2You. Based on Medway City Estate, the company has an aggressive marketing strategy that involves dumping vans with their adverts in prime locations.
Some of these have been parked on bridges over roads for months, if not years. Indeed, one is visible on Google Maps on Higham Road in Wainscott in imagery taken in November 2022, which remains on the same bridge today.
Many of them are parked in fairly innocuous locations like this, where they are mildly annoying rather than anything more. Some of them have been left in more questionable locations, like the car park of Asda in Chatham or the entrance to Medway City Estate.
Then there is the one parked on a bit of green space on Pier Road in Gillingham for much of this year. The advertising van had somehow been positioned on a rare bit of grass in this part of Gillingham, where it wasn’t hugely welcome.
By April, a Notice to Quit had appeared on the windscreen from Medway Council, telling the owner to move their van. By June, this had turned into details of a court date to settle the matter. By September, the windows of the van had been smashed, though this presumably wasn’t a Medway Council action.
Fast forward to this week, when Sammy Redsell, a former Director of Hire2You, posted across several local Facebook groups asking for help locating his ‘stolen’ van.
It’s utterly fascinating that he can’t possibly imagine why it had gone missing, given the notice of legal proceedings placed on it for months on end. It demonstrates the company's care for its vehicles and the areas it dumps them in, given nobody had thought to check on it in the intervening months.
Happily, he posted an update a little later that he had found out that bailiffs had removed the van and that he intended to pick it up the next day. The van hasn’t arrived back on Pier Road yet, but in his subsequent Facebook book, Mr Redsell seemed unrepentant, suggesting he’d add ten more advertising vans to his fleet of five existing ones.
We await the next round of Hire2You vs Medway Council with anticipation.
In brief
🍻 Medway Council has granted an alcohol licence to a new convenience shop in the Intra area despite objections from local residents. The store, which takes over the former model railway shop between Chatham and Rochester, will be allowed to sell alcohol between 9am and 11pm every day but had limits imposed on the sale of high alcohol content drinks.
🗳️ New Gillingham and Rainham MP Naushabah Khan has been elected to the Housing, Communities and Local Government select committee. The committee scrutinises and oversees the policies and expenditures of the Ministry of the same name.
🗣️ The year's final full Medway Council meeting is at the St. George’s Centre in Chatham this Thursday. On the agenda: Winter Fuel Allowance, racism, school place planning, sports centre spending, a review of the constitution, and lots more.
🚗 Medway Hospital is set to introduce ANPR cameras to its main car parks. This will avoid the need to get a ticket when entering, but won’t do much about the lack of spaces and excessive charges.
🐕 Medway Council has agreed on a dog public space protection order. The new rules will see new restrictions on where dogs can be and where they are allowed to be off-lead, though the measures have been questioned as only one employee for all of Medway will be employed to enforce them.
🧑⚕️ NHS Kent and Medway are reviewing adult ADHD services after being unable to keep up with the demand for diagnoses and support. They are carrying out a survey to understand how the service could be improved.
🏢 237 affordable homes have been completed at Chatham Waters in Gillingham. The Cavalier Court development includes 139 homes for shared ownership and 98 homes for affordable rent, provided to people on Medway Council’s housing list.
More Authority
This week's weekend interview was with Michi Masumi, an award-winning photographer who recently launched the Black Art Hub at Nucleus Arts in Chatham. We discuss what brought her to Medway, her unconventional route to photography, and the focus of her PhD.
Footnotes
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: Waited Up Til It Was Light by Johnny Foreigner, Probably Nothing, Possibly Everything by Pat the Bunny, and Therapy Island by Cheekface.