Rainham pub set to become homes as nothing else good enough
Plus planning committee stumbles again, Medway Tories' high energy away day, news in brief, and more
A Rainham pub closed for five years looks set to be converted into housing after attempts to convert it into a nursery, a microbrewery, or reopening it as a pub all failed. The owner accuses Medway Council of making any other use more complex, so we’ve been looking at the situation. Further down, we have news of a bewildering situation from last week’s planning committee, the Medway Tories’ away day, news in brief, and more.
Rainham pub set to become homes as nothing else good enough
Since its closure in 2019, several efforts have been made to return The Green Lion pub to some kind of community use. Now, it seems those efforts are over, as a new planning application has been submitted to convert the pub's ground floor into two flats.
In 2020, plans were submitted to convert the building into a day nursery. The facility would have created jobs and provided 40 nursery places in a central location. In an unusual moment for planning decisions, nearly 150 residents wrote in favour of the proposal, with just one objection.
Medway Council was initially nervous about the application due to the parking situation. The plan was for parents to drop their children off in the former pub car park, but planning officers felt this carried a risk to the level of traffic entering the site at busy times. As such, the applicants withdrew the parking provision from the plans. When the application reached the planning committee, it was refused. One of the main reasons given was the lack of parking:
Due to the lack of on-site parking provided for the use and within the immediate locality, there is potential for indiscriminate parking within the vicinity of the building particularly at pick-up and drop-of times for the children attending the nursery.
In the years since, the site's owner has claimed various other schemes have been attempted and collapsed, which he claims is often down to ‘nit-picking’ by council officers.
Plans to turn the site into a microbrewery and to reopen as a pub came and went without success. The pub was even advertised for rent for less than most houses in Medway cost, but seemingly, no one was interested in the offer.
In the midst of all of this, an application was submitted to build six houses on the car park at the rear of the pub. With Medway Council seemingly uncomfortable about any new commercial use for the site, presumably housing would be acceptable.
As applications go, it was reasonably high quality, with mews-style houses that matched the surrounding architectural styles.
Of course, Medway Council also refused the houses on the slightly spurious grounds that existing trees made the gardens a bit shady and that vehicles exiting the homes would create traffic and a risk to pedestrians. How six houses generate a more extensive traffic problem than a pub car park was never fully explained.
As tends to be the way with housing application refusals when you don’t have a Local Plan, the site owner appealed and won, as the planning inspector handling the case didn’t accept Medway Council’s refusal grounds as strong enough.
So, with the car park now settled as being converted to housing, the remaining commercial options for the main part of the pub building have become somewhat limited. This leads us to today's application to convert the bulk of the pub into two flats with their own parking spaces.
Some will lament the loss of a community location in the centre of Rainham. Of course, not every pub can remain as such, and things inevitably change use over time. It does seem a slightly odd scenario, though, that Medway Council has chosen to stop wanted community uses and instead landed in a position where the site likely becomes housing. Needed housing, for sure, but an odd situation nonetheless.
Local Authority is an award-winning independent news service for Medway. To receive our free weekly briefing editions straight to your inbox when we publish, please subscribe below.
Planning committee stumbles again
We’ve flagged issues with the functioning of Medway Council’s planning committee before for their questionable decisions and often ineffective nature. Earlier this year, we covered a baffling situation in which they deferred a planning application because they claimed not to be knowledgeable enough to know how to proceed until they received additional training.
Last week saw another bewildering display from Medway’s planning committee as they tackled the decision over 44 new homes in St Mary Hoo.
The application was submitted by the owners of The Fenn Bell pub, which now largely functions as a zoo after a small animal collection in their garden got rather out of hand.
The organisation previously bought a plot of land near their site, with the stated claim of creating gorilla enclosures and an overflow car park. Earlier this year, citing financial reasons, they submitted an application to build 44 homes on the site instead.
Unsurprisingly, local residents weren’t particularly enthused by this proposal and started a campaign against the plans. Residents wrote in to oppose the application en masse, and the parish council started organising a coach to get residents to protest at the planning committee. Talking to KentOnline, Cllr Nick Craddy of St Mary Hoo parish council was so upset about the plans that he forgot how maths works:
“In St Mary Hoo, presently, there are 90 homes, so with these 44, you've just more than doubled the size of the parish in one go - you’re destroying the character of what is effectively a hamlet.”
When the application reached the planning committee last week, Medway Council officers recommended the plans for approval, arguing that there were not really any strong grounds to oppose them and that even if they did, they would likely lose on appeal, which, as we’ve just learnt, often happens.
Things are never that simple, though, leading to rather chaotic scenes from a planning committee that seems to be increasingly stumbling through its work.
Following a rousing speech against the application from independent All Saints ward councillor Chris Spalding, the discussion turned to its sustainability. Following some back-and-forth, Independent Group councillor Michael Pearce proposed that the committee visit the site to further assess the plans. Labour councillor Eddie Peake seconded this, somewhat surprisingly, in a move seemingly not expected by Cllr Peake’s Labour colleagues.
As the idea was seconded, it needed to be put to a vote, where things took an even more surreal turn. As Vice Chair of the committee, it is down to Cllr Mark Jones to move any proposals for a vote, but instead of doing so, he spent a period of time saying he didn’t know how to proceed because he was against a site visit and tried to push that case once again. This is hardly the point, given the idea had been proposed and seconded, meaning it became a matter for the committee to decide. Cllr Jones eventually had to be forced back to the original vote that he was obliged to call.
In the end, the vote for a site visit was won. Five Conservative councillors and three Labour ones supported Cllr Pearce’s call for a site visit, with only five Labour councillors and one Conservative councillor opposing. As a result, a visit will take place, and the decision will come back to a future planning committee. It was clear that the committee's Chair, Cllr Chrissy Stamp, and Vice Chair, Cllr Mark Jones, were not happy with the chain of events that led here.
In a way, this is all part of the function of the planning committee. By design, it is not meant to be a whipped forum, meaning votes shouldn’t necessarily follow party lines. But it does border on the outrageous that Cllr Jones attempted to use his position as Vice Chair to stop the committee from voting for something he didn’t approve of.
Maybe even more training for the planning committee is needed.
Medway Tories’ high energy away day
As the Conservative Party holds their national party conference to figure out what the future looks like for a shrunken party, the local party has been doing a similar exercise.
The Medway Conservatives held their annual ‘away day’ last week. These events are common for local politicians to hash out policy and future strategy. In this case, the party held policy discussions and plotted ‘Vision 2027’, their plan to approach the next local elections in Medway. However, what is slightly less unusual is that they publicise what is effectively internal manoeuvring.
To be honest, we likely wouldn’t have included this if it wasn’t for the tweet the party posted to talk about the event that described it as being ‘high energy’ with ‘thought provoking discussion.’
That high energy in full:
Of course, one picture might not be representative, but almost all give off the same vibe.
If these are the photos chosen to represent ‘high energy’, what do the ones that didn’t make the cut look like?
The whole thing is slightly reminiscent of the Thick Of It away day episode, where a bunch of Conservative MPs and staffers head to a country hotel for the day to figure things out. The main difference is that the Thick Of It version at least features some women, something the Medway Conservatives are distinctly lacking. Maybe, if the ‘Vision 2027’ plan is a success, they might manage to get a handful elected next time.
In brief
🛍️ B&M will open in Gillingham on November 16. The former Wilko store is being refurbished ahead of the retailer's launch in the town.
🥡 Jade Garden Chinese restaurant in Chatham has had its licence suspended for three months. Following multiple licensing committee meetings, the decision was made after the restaurant employed illegal immigrants.
🪴 Dobbies Garden Centre in Gillingham has avoided closure for now. The company is restructuring and will close 17 stores this year, but the Medway store isn’t on the list.
🏪 The Delce Road Co-op in Rochester has closed until December for refurbishment. The tiny store will be expanded, and new fridges and self-checkouts will be installed.
🪨 Medway's planning committee has extended the infilling of a quarry in Strood for another three years. Filling the quarry was initially agreed upon in 2015 but will now take until 2027, ultimately allowing 181 homes to be built on the site.
👨💼 Prisons Minister James Timpson has confirmed that urgent improvements are being undertaken at HMP Rochester. The prison was recently criticised in a report that found ‘squalid’ conditions.
🗳️ Medway Conservative councillor Andrew Lawrence has appeared on the Kent Politics Podcast to argue that Medway Council should be abolished. He proposes a Kent-wide unitary authority and dramatic changes to local taxation.
More Authority
In July’s General Election, Medway returned three Labour MPs, sweeping away a Conservative domination that had held, with one minor interruption, since 2010. One of those new MPs was Naushabah Khan, who took the Gillingham and Rainham seat from Rehman Chishti. We sat down with her to discuss adjusting to life as an MP, recent controversial votes on the two-child benefit cap and the Winter Fuel Allowance, and how trust can be restored in politics.
“We believe we can turn the country around”
Having represented Gillingham South as a Medway councillor since 2015, Naushabah Khan was elected to represent Gillingham and Rainham constituency in the recent General Election, defeating Rehman Chishti. Steven met Naushabah in Starbucks to discuss the election, getting used to life in Parliament, her views on the two-child benefit cap and the Winter Fuel Allowance, and restoring trust in politics.
Coming up this week for paid supporters, we’ll be looking at the world of urban exploring in Medway. Urban explorers set out to explore abandoned and unseen spaces, though the practice can be controversial. We’ve been talking to one of Medway’s most prominent urban explorers to learn more.
Footnotes
If you enjoy Local Authority, please share it with your friends, family, associates, and enemies. We have no meaningful marketing budget, so we rely on word of mouth from our readers to find new readers. You can even get some sweet rewards for sending new readers our way. Details here.
Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: In Sickness & In Flames by The Front Bottoms, Overwhelmed and Underdressed by Walter Mitty and His Makeshift Orchestra, and Dress Up by The Spook School.
Lets hope that the refurbishment of the Co-op also addresses the heavy smell of damp which have taken over the shop in recent years.