Voice of the Leader

Medway Council Leader Vince Maple on local government reorganisation, changes in Medway over the past year, and what's ahead for 2025.

Editor’s note: Each month, we present a guest column from one of Medway’s elected representatives, rotating between our MPs, council and opposition leaders, and the Police and Crime Commissioner. Today, for our final Voice piece of the year, we welcome Medway Council Leader Vince Maple, who talks about local government reorganisation, changes seen in Medway over the past year, and what’s ahead for 2025.

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Voice of the Leader

by Vince Maple, Leader of Medway Council

Cllr Vince Maple

It’s a real pleasure to be writing the final Voice of the Leader of 2024.

I’m writing this on December 15th, which this year is an additional “Eve” alongside Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve – it is White Paper Eve.

This is the much-anticipated White Paper on English Devolution. There has been significant media speculation on what may be contained within it. Until it has been published it is difficult to go into any substantial detail. What is clear is that the Council of Regions and Nations will be of great importance to the government in engagement across the United Kingdom – I’m very clear that Medway must have its voice heard around that table. That is likely to mean a requirement of an elected mayor across the region of Kent and Medway, although again, we will need to see the detail within the white paper.

The other element there has been great speculation about is local government reorganisation – again until it is published it is difficult to give detailed thoughts but one thing I am very clear on is the success of unitary authorities. I have only ever served as a councillor on Medway Council, a single tier of local government. I have never had to send an email saying, ‘It is not this council, but the other council that looks after this area.’ I appreciate that others who serve in areas which have two councils may have a different view, but I will always be an advocate for unitary authorities.

That said, any local government reorganisation can be a challenging process, often with competing views and difficult decisions.

Whatever the white paper includes, I will keep residents informed as we move forward together.

As this is the last column of the year, it’s a great opportunity to look back on the past 12 months.

Of course, I must begin with July 4th, when Medway and the country gave Labour the opportunity to serve. Having had a historic night in May 2023 that was followed by further history in July, delivering three Labour MPs alongside a majority Labour & Co-op Council with a Labour Government.

Tris, Lauren and Naushabah are all working hard for the communities they represent, already making important contributions in parliament as well as supporting households, businesses, voluntary sector organisations and much more.

That led to changes within the council cabinet, with Louwella, Alex and Nina all hitting the ground running in their new roles, working hard with existing cabinet members.

We have continued to make good progress in a number of areas, whether it is publishing the One Medway Council Plan, the recent inspection on our role as landlord where we got the second highest available rating, the completion of the Cozenton Park Sports Centre, securing nearly £3 million funding for the Whose Hoo project to benefit the Hoo Peninsula, launching the Gillingham Taskforce to make much needed improvements in the Gillingham Town Centre area, more than 114,000 engagements with the Child Friendly Medway programme (that’s the equivalent of 10 full Priestfield stadiums!), opening the Ascend coworking space in the Pentagon, broadcast the weekly One Minute Medway, opening the Paddock as an outstanding piece of public realm, and securing the agreements for the James Williams Healthy Living Centre – named after our Director of Public Health who we tragically lost earlier this year.

It is also an opportunity to look ahead to 2025 as well – obviously, we will be positively working with the backdrop of whatever is in the White Paper, and we will also continue on our journey towards financial sustainability and transformation making sure we deliver the best possible services with the resources we have available. This will no doubt mean some further difficult decisions this year as we continue to work through the Financial Improvement and Transformation (FIT) plan.

We will also work towards the long overdue Medway Local Plan. The last Local Plan was published in 2003, which meant when we were elected, the plan was already 20 years old – simply not good enough.

Can I take this opportunity to thank residents who have made submissions to the consultation process this year. I am hopeful this administration will deliver the much-needed Local Plan so we can move away from some speculative developers taking advantage of the weakened position of an out-of-date Local Plan for Medway.

I hope the other political groups and councillors will work with us as we move towards the final stages as it is in the best interests of Medway to have an up-to-date Local Plan.

We will also be making further progress on important projects like Medway 2.0 and Care for Medway – both of which will mean better outcomes for local residents.

Can I take this opportunity to thank hard working council officers, particularly those who will be working over the Christmas period, our emergency services & our armed forces keeping Medway safe now and throughout the year.

I also want to recognise voluntary sector organisations who really make such a huge contribution across Medway both at Christmas time and during the rest of the year – thank you for what you do.

I want to thank the 58 other councillors on Medway Council - whether part of the Labour & Co-op group or not, every councillor serves their community and plays a part in our local democracy – as the late Jo Cox MP said, “We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”

I want to say a special thank you to my brilliant Deputy Leader Teresa Murray for her support and the tremendous job she does for the community of Medway.

It was great that the work of the Medway Labour & Co-operative Council was recently recognised as Council of the Year at the SME4Labour annual awards ceremony – once again truly making me Proud To Be Medway.

Finally, thanks to Ed and Steven for their ongoing work producing the award-winning Local Authority – holding all those in power to account as well as being strong advocates for Medway.

I wish all Local Authority readers a Merry Christmas and a Peaceful & Positive 2025

Cllr Vince Maple is the Leader of Medway Council and Labour councillor for Chatham Central and Brompton.