Red routes suddenly start catching people in some places
Plus Budgens refused licence in Chatham, news in brief, and more.
Earlier this year, we revealed how some of Medway’s red route cameras hadn’t managed to catch a single driver flouting the rules. Six months on, that’s still the case in some places, but one location in particular is seeing hundreds of fines issued every month. We take a look at what’s been going on. Further down, we have news of Budgens being refused a licence to open a grocery store in Chatham’s flagship regeneration project, news and brief, and more.
Editor’s note: Thanks for your understanding and kind words I’ve received after slowing down our schedule a little following the death of my father. We’re almost back to full speed now (if not quite, hence this arriving on Wednesday morning and being a little shorter than usual), but we should be putting out a full slate of content this week. Thanks also to everyone who came along to our fourth birthday event last week - we’ll share some photos and audio from that in the coming weeks. It’s been a weird time to be hitting a significant milestone for Local Authority, but it has demonstrated the kind and engaged audience that has developed around this thing, and we’re so, so grateful for that.
Red routes suddenly start catching people in some places but not others
Medway Council’s red route scheme is providing a very mixed bag of results for the authority, with two of the five sites failing to catch a single driver flouting the rules in the first year of operation.
On the other hand, some sites, most notably The Brook in Chatham, are issuing fines to swathes of drivers following an adjustment of the camera positions.
Earlier this year, we reported that just 35 fines had been issued across the five red route locations in the first six months of operation of the scheme from May 2024.
The picture is very different for the first half of 2025 though, with over 1,800 fines being issued on Medway’s red routes between January and June this year, according to figures obtained by Local Authority.
Most of these (1,585) came from The Brook in Chatham, which only saw five fines issued in 2024. Medway Council told us that an additional camera was placed on The Brook to provide additional coverage. Happily for Medway Council, that camera seems to have been placed where hundreds of drivers each month park illegally.
When we asked Medway Council last year why no one was being caught on The Brook despite the on-the-ground evidence of illegal parking, they told us it was due to “a high level of compliance” with the rules. Presumably, it is both fortunate and unfortunate that hundreds of drivers stopped complying after a second camera was installed.
In distant second is High Street, Rainham, where 210 fines were issued. Next is Star Hill in Rochester, with 27 drivers receiving penalties.
Finally, both Corporation Street in Rochester and Best Street in Chatham saw zero fines issued to drivers. While Best Street seems feasible, given no one seems to ever stop there, a cursory glance along Corporation Street will usually find at least a couple of vehicles either stopped in the loading bay in peak hours or cars dropping people off in the station bus stop. One can only assume that Medway Council will be looking to move some cameras around there to get the figures looking a little more like The Brook.
Have a Medway story you think we might be interested in? Get in touch via hello(at)localauthority(dot)news - We’re always happy to talk off the record in the first instance…
Budgens refused licence for Chatham store
Budgens has been told it can’t sell alcohol from its new store in the Chatham Waterfront development, after councillors rejected the application over fears it would worsen anti-social behaviour in the town centre.
The store, which forms part of the large new blocks of flats on the riverfront, was seeking permission to sell alcohol from 6am to 11pm each day. But the site falls within a Cumulative Impact Policy zone and a Public Space Protection Order area, both designed to control the availability of alcohol in areas where drink-related crime and nuisance are already a problem.
The council's licensing committee heard objections from Medway’s public health team and Kent Police, who pointed to persistent issues with street drinking, assaults and alcohol-fuelled disturbances in the surrounding area. They warned that allowing another off-licence could tip the balance further, citing evidence that increased availability of alcohol has a direct impact on local harm.
In return, Budgens argued that the store would not contribute to these issues, pointing to a refusal to stock high-strength booze or single cans and the area's wider regeneration. But councillors remained unconvinced, saying the application failed to show how it would not add to the problems already identified. It was noted that the bar for new alcohol licences in cumulative impact areas is set deliberately high, and that nothing in Budgens’ proposal qualified as exceptional.
This isn’t the first time a major retailer has come up against Medway’s alcohol policy. A few months ago, Tesco applied for a licence to sell alcohol from a convenience store next to Rochester Station, just within the Rochester cumulative impact zone. Despite the site’s proximity to a busy commuter route and its potential to serve local residents, the application was met with strong opposition from both public health officers and the police. Tesco tried to tweak its proposal by reducing the hours, but the pushback remained firm, and the application was eventually dropped.
The council’s approach has been consistent in this. Alcohol in cumulative impact zones will only be approved if the applicant can show it won’t contribute to existing problems. Still, the threshold for that is so high that most can’t, meaning it is nearly impossible to open a new grocery provision in a town centre covered by such a scheme, even if the town desperately needs it.
While Budgens has been refused permission to sell alcohol, a tanning salon in a neighbouring unit in the same development has recently opened. For now, the verdict is clear. UV beds are fine, but a grocery store in a new flagship regeneration scheme is a bit too far.
In brief
🚒 The former St John Fisher school building in Ordnance Street in Chatham caught fire again last night. It’s roughly the 637th fire on the site since the school closed in 2022.
➡️ Tickets are now available for the hottest political ticket for the summer, as all three Medway Reform branches come together to hold a special event in… Maidstone. They’ll welcome Matt Goodwin, a politics professor who managed to radicalise himself, and some other speakers.
🏗️ Medway Council are set to increase the scope of its care home project on the former Innovation Park Medway site. The new plans will see a £37m project to create an 80-bed facility with the possibility of complementary services alongside.
🍲 Food charities in Medway are calling for more support as 30% of children in the area now live in poverty.
🏪 Poundland is set to close its Rainham store, which opened less than three years ago.
🎾 The University of Greenwich is the latest to jump on the padel hype train, applying to build two outdoor courts on a temporary ten-year basis.
⚽ 62 football pitches in Medway could be improved using £600,000 funding from the Football Foundation.
More Authority
Our schedule has still been a bit over the place, so two pieces in the past week have been exclusively for our paid supporters. Last week, our music correspondent Stephen Morris reviewed three new Medway music releases by The Penrose Web, The Spike Direction Effect, and The Guy Hamper Trio.
Sea monsters, swirling organs, and Chatham pockets
There’s a lot of new Medway music emerging at the moment, so we got our music correspondent, Stephen Morris, to take a listen to three new releases from Medway bands and tell you all about them.
On Sunday, our big sit-down interview was with Gillingham North councillor and former Deputy Mayor, Douglas Hamandishe. We discuss his arrival in the UK as a refugee, how he trained as an engineer but became a mental health nurse, and lots more.
“My baptism to life was seeing mankind at its worst”
Douglas Hamandishe was elected to Medway Council in 2023, and has recently served as Deputy Mayor. Steven met him at Gun Wharf and they discussed coming to the UK as a refugee, why training as an engineer helped make him a mental health nurse, and what the AI leverage is.
Over on our sister title, the Kent Current, we sat down with the new Reform leader of Kent County Council, Linden Kemkaran. It’s the biggest interview she has done since taking over in May, and we touch upon a lot, from her background, the perception of her party, Brexit, and whether the UK is heading toward civil disorder. It’s a hugely illuminating read about a new politician who now wields an awful lot of power.
Footnotes
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: The Sunset Tree by The Mountain Goats, Accelerate by REM, and Prioritise Pleasure by Self Esteem.
£11.55 to go hear Reform?! I 'respectfully' decline their invitation to join their hallucinations
What’s interesting about the Red Route in Rainham is that I haven’t seen a single business close due to it’s implementation. Even though the local councillors, the then MP and the Medway Messenger would have us believe it would be the end of civilisation in Rainham.