Two Medway Labour councillors suspended from party
Plus Rochester Visitor Centre closure, landslip impacts trains, School Streets starting in two weeks, and more
What leads to two Medway Labour councillors being suspended from their party? Each other, if accounts of the situation are to be believed. Further down, we have news of the impact of the Rochester Visitor Centre’s closure, trains being affected all week by a landslip, news on School Streets enforcement starting, and lots more.
Editor’s note: You might be thinking, “Hang on, why am I receiving the briefing edition on a Tuesday instead of a Friday?” To answer that, we’re having a little juggle of the schedule, and you’ll find more details on that further down.
We should also flag that from next week, we will be increasing the price of Local Authority for new paid subscribers. This change will only affect anyone who signs up after March 5 - all current paid subscribers get to keep their existing pricing. This does mean that if you’ve been considering becoming a paid subscriber, this is a great week to do so as you can lock in the existing price for as long as you remain a subscriber. We don’t take the issue of raising our price lightly, particularly at a time when so many are struggling, but the unfortunate reality is that our price has remained fixed for nearly three years now, and it is something we need to do to make us sustainable for the long term.
Finally (we’ll get to the news in a minute, sorry), we’ve launched our 2024 reader survey. Understanding our readership and what they would like to see from Local Authority will really help us make this project as good as it can be, so we’d really appreciate it if you could spare a few minutes to help us out.
Two Labour councillors suspended from party
Once again proving that the biggest threat to Medway Labour is Medway Labour itself, two of the party’s councillors have been suspended from their party following reports of an ‘altercation’ between the two.
Strood West councillor Satinder Shokar and Strood North & Frindsbury councillor Stephen Hubbard have both had the whip removed pending further investigation by the Labour Party.
While this doesn’t directly upset the balance of power at Medway Council, it does reduce the administration’s number to 31 of the 59 councillors, as Cllrs Hubbard and Shokar will be forced to sit as independents for the foreseeable future. In reality, they are likely to continue voting with the administration if they would like to get back into the fold later, but they are technically immune from any kind of whipping operation.
The suspension of the councillors will likely mean changes to committees on Medway Council, as Cllr Hubbard is Chair of the Planning Committee while Cllr Shokar is Vice-Chair of the Health and Adult Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
Details of exactly what led to the suspension of the two councillors remain vague, but sources suggested that an altercation took place between the pair at a Christmas party.
The Medway Labour Group declined to comment on the incident citing the ongoing investigation. Cllr Shokar also told us that he was unable to say anything due to the ongoing investigation. We have also approached Cllr Hubbard for comment.
Rochester Visitor Centre closure presents a new problem
With Medway Council facing the brink as it attempts to pass a balanced budget this week, one of the casualties of the process has been Rochester’s Visitor Centre on the High Street.
Closing the centre will save the council a little under £200,000 annually, which is both simultaneously a big number and not a huge amount in terms of council budgets. As the building is no longer owned by the council, the rent on the building was a prohibitive ongoing cost.
The building has felt strangely unutilised in recent years since the departure of the cafe that took up much of the ground floor. It was strange that this was never replaced given it was previously well used and, as one reader noted to us, was one of the few wheelchair accessible locations in Rochester.
Unfortunately, another loss from this closure is the Rochester Art Gallery, Medway’s only publicly funded exhibition space. The gallery has hosted a number of interesting exhibitions, making art accessible to those just passing by rather than those who chose to seek it out.
The more curious question now is what happens to the Huguenot Museum, located upstairs in the centre. The museum is owned and operated by the French Hospital charity, and in theory isn’t affected by Medway Council’s decision. In reality though, the museum is only accessible through the ground floor visitor centre, leaving the organisation with the challenge of potentially having to look after the desolate downstairs area themselves to guide visitors to the main attraction upstairs.
With enough planning, it might be possible to make something of the whole building, but with the council set to leave their part in April, alternative ways to manage the site will need to come forward quickly.
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Landslip destroys rail timetables
Proving once again that relying on a primarily Victorian rail network and rarely building any new infrastructure will bite you eventually, rail services in Medway have been severely disrupted by a landslip in Newington.
A 40m long stretch of material slipped down the embankment following heavy rain, resulting in the line needing to be closed in both directions. As a result, significant numbers of trains are cancelled this week, with Network Rail only providing an ‘aspiration’ that the line will reopen next week.
High-speed services are the most affected, being unable to run through Medway, with just an hourly service between Rochester and St Pancras being provided instead. Passengers needing to reach most easterly parts of our towns can use Victoria services to Gillingham, and proving useful for quite possibly the first time, Thameslink trains are the only ones currently running into Rainham. Replacement bus services are in operation between Gillingham and Sittingbourne.
This sort of thing does happen, unfortunately, however disruptive it may be. It does expose Medway’s weakness as a set of commuter towns though. With only one (very old) rail line running through our towns, and no alternative transport options to get to London since all of the coaches were withdrawn, commuters are at the mercy of incidents like this. Let’s hope that Network Rail can resolve the issue at Newington and that our trains are ‘only’ disrupted for a week.
School Streets start in two weeks
Medway Council is moving forward with its plan to launch School Streets, with the first set of locations set to come online on March 11. School Streets restrict most traffic from entering a street around a school. This makes the area safer for children going to and from school, and in theory, encourages more active travel to get there rather than parents dropping their children by car. It should also be noted that they are not part of some globalist conspiracy.
The seven locations launching in a couple of weeks are:
Burnt Oak Primary School, Gillingham
Greenvale Primary School, Chatham
Miers Court Primary School, Rainham
Phoenix Primary School, Chatham
St Mary's Catholic Primary School, Gillingham
St Peter's Infant School, Rochester
St Thomas More Catholic Primary School, Walderslade
Most of these locations should be fairly straightforward, being located in closed cul-de-sac streets, making them relatively easy to avoid. One, however, does rather stand out.
The restrictions around Burnt Oak Primary School in Gillingham see a restriction for motor vehicles on a section of Richmond Road, a key route for traffic travelling between the town centre and the north of the town. Vehicles approaching the zone from the north can divert into Clifton Road at the start of the restrictions, which while not ideal, does provide an escape route. On the other side of the scheme, vehicles travelling from the south have no options other than turning around in the road once they reach the signs as the adjoining road is one-way in the opposite direction. Of course, over time drivers should learn that the road is not accessible during School Street hours, but at the start, a lot of drivers will inevitably either end up driving through the zone or potentially create more conflicts by turning around on a narrow, busy street.
None of this suggests that School Streets aren’t worth proceeding with, but much like last week’s issue with Rochester High Street, it does make one wonder how much thought has gone into certain elements of the scheme.
Can you help?
💧 We’re still eager to speak to anyone with knowledge of dumping and spillages into the River Medway, particularly through our towns. We are aware of some incidents around Rochester and seeking further information from those with knowledge of the situation.
We’re happy to speak on or off the record in the first instance, so please get in touch if you might be able to offer some insight. If you’re reading this in your email inbox, you can just hit reply, or email us at hello@localauthority.news.
In brief
🗣️ Gillingham and Rainham MP Rehman Chishti has come out swinging on the issue of Islamophobia within the Conservative Party following the suspension of Lee Anderson. Speaking to Sophy Ridge on Sky, Chishti accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of breaking a promise to him to tackle the issue, saying “I’ve not seen the PM for over a year and a half.” Ouch.
🍺 The Angel in Rainham will have its new sign replaced after it placed the pub in the wrong town. Residents are eager to see the pub reopening after a change in ownership and refurbishment but were amused to see the signage locate the establishment in Gillingham instead.
🌹 Journalist Michael Crick, who is chronicling the selection of parliamentary candidates on Twitter, has reported that most constituencies that still haven’t selected a Labour candidate will have one appointed by the national party. In Medway, Chatham & Aylesford is the only one to have not selected a candidate, though Cllr Tris Osborne had put himself forward for the role.
👷 Dizzee Rascal visited Diggerland last week. The rapper, who was convicted for assaulting his partner in 2022, was described as “lovely and down to earth”. Diggerland said they were “delighted” and “thrilled” to welcome the domestic violence perpetrator to their family theme park.
Programming note
This is the first Tuesday briefing edition of Local Authority. This represents the first big change in the publishing schedule we’ve had since launch. Today’s edition is effectively what you would have previously received on Fridays. There are many reasons why moving these editions to earlier in the week makes sense for us, not least because publishing news on a Friday afternoon or evening is a bit like shouting into the void.
As for how the rest of the schedule will shake out, all readers will still receive a Friday edition as well. This will be a bit looser than the straight news that today brings, with a bit more focus on culture and events. Elsewhere, our Sunday interviews will become exclusive for paid supporters without the usual preview that we send out to all subscribers, any special features will go out to paid supporters on Wednesdays or Thursdays, and we’re also eager to launch a thread of editions highlighting work from local creatives on some Saturdays. It might take a little while for this new schedule to bed in fully, but we do hope you’ll stick with us.
Footnotes
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this newsletter: Can’t Die by Chris Farren, God Don’t Make No Junk by The Halo Benders, Yikes by Dollar Signs, and Bus Route To Your Heart by Milky Wimpshake.
The Huguenot Museum is an independent, registered charity. We work closely with our parent charity, The French Hospital, that owns the building that currently houses both the Visitor Information Centre and the museum. The Huguenot Museum on the first and second floors will remain open and accessible from the ground floor. Future plans for the occupation and ground floor are undetermined but we will update you.
Lara Dix, Operations Manager, Huguenot Museum.