We almost had a cable car

Medway could look very different with better connectivity

It’s a crisp autumn morning, and you’re heading into town to do some shopping. Instead of battling through the traffic of Rochester and prowling Chatham looking for a parking space, you cruise to the edge of Medway City Estate and leave your car at the giant park-and-ride car park on the edge of the river. From there, you pop into the station for the Medway Cable Car, which whisks you up and over the river before depositing you on the waterfront in Chatham. It’s not the Chatham you’re familiar with. It’s a thriving retail destination, with a large cultural hub consisting of a modern theatre, music venues, a cinema, and other things to make staying in town worthwhile.

All of this sounds fantastical given where we are, but all of this was once on the cards. Less than two decades ago, there were grand plans for the centre of Medway, before we settled into years of managed decline instead.

So, just why don’t we have the cultural hub, or more intriguingly, a Medway cable car system?

Pondering a cable car for Medway sounds like an absurd folly, but for a period in the mid-2000s, it was a serious proposal and even reached the point of funding pots being set aside for it.