We might actually get a Local Plan
No, really, we might
Local Authority has been running for nearly four years now, and most of that time, we’ve been going on about Medway’s repeated stalled efforts to pass a Local Plan. Now, at a special full council meeting on Thursday, there might actually be one on the table that can make it onto the books. We’ve got the full details below. It’s a big one, so let’s get to it.
We might actually get a Local Plan
Regular readers of Local Authority will be well aware of the ongoing failures of Medway Council to deliver a Local Plan. Medway Council has been operating without this legally required developmental framework for 14 years, and at times, it has seemed like we might never get one passed. That idea started as a joke but became a genuine threat with the imminent abolition of Medway Council.
A Local Plan sets out a future vision for Medway. The headlines will inevitably focus on the housing supply allocations, which the plan is obliged to include. Still, the concept is much broader and covers everything from transport to retail to health.
Now, in 2025, Medway Council might be able to get a Local Plan passed. That doesn’t mean the process is complete, but the political stage could be. On Thursday, councillors at Medway will vote on whether to take the plan's latest version to consultation and inspection, which is the final hurdle to getting it on the books.
So what does this version of the Local Plan look like?
The Plan
The headline figure of the plan is that it allocates room for the 24,540 homes that Medway needs between now and 2041. Or at least, it nearly does. The plan itself allocates sites for 21,194 homes, as well as 1,762 that currently have planning permission, and includes room for 1,584 homes on ‘windfall’ sites, the ‘cross your fingers and hope something comes along’ of local planning.
For residential sites, Medway Council has adopted their previously preferred ‘blended’ model for site allocations, with 40% coming from brownfield sites in urban centres, 30% from suburban extensions, and 30% on greenfield land, the latter of which is primarily around a significant extension of Hoo and, to a lesser extent, High Halstow.
Following a consultation on a previous plan in 2024, proposed development has been reduced to the east of Rainham and on the more remote peninsula villages. On the other hand, Hoo St Werburgh is now proposed to take a greater proportion, as well as extensive new developments to the north west of Strood.
The plan sets the ‘affordable’ housing requirement in Medway at 27%, slightly higher than the intended (but rarely delivered) levels now, with 10% of residential allocations also being dedicated to older people.
Beyond residential, the plan also includes 204,000sqm of industrial floorspace and 36,500sqm of office space, with much of the employment allocations from the plan coming from around Kingsnorth and Grain. The plan also projects future retail needs, including a desire for a supermarket and additional grocery provision on the Hoo Peninsula.
Regarding transport, the plan acknowledges that some major junctions, like the Sans Pareil and Four Elms roundabouts around Wainscott and Gillingham Gate, will need significant mitigation efforts to withstand future development. The plan safeguards land around the Grain branch line to High Halstow, indicating Medway Council still believes a future rail connection to the area is feasible.
One of the more interesting proposals within this version of the plan is a long-term concept to radically redevelop Medway City Estate into a primary residential development. This seems logical given its central waterfront location within Medway, but also represents a significant challenge given the heavily industrialised nature of the area.
Speaking to us about the proposals, Cllr Simon Curry, Portfolio Holder for Climate Change and Strategic Regeneration, told us that climate change was partly behind the long-term plans for Medway City Estate. With flooding likely to become a regular occurrence in Chatham and Strood town centres, “Medway City Estate is already starting to flood in places,” which will likely make it less sustainable as an employment centre. As a result, the plan takes an aspirational view that businesses can move off the estate, which can be redeveloped to feature a residential centre, as well as allowing part of the area to flood to protect the other town centres.
Under this version of the Local Plan, Hoo St Werburgh would undergo a significant transformation, adding 5,300 new homes, increasing the size of the community by 50%. Plans for Hoo include a new town centre to the east of Hoo with retail, health, and education facilities and additional new local centres to the west and in Chattenden.
Perhaps the most surprising allocation in this plan is for land northwest of Strood, which was not included in the previous version. This includes sites for 1,200 new homes alongside a new local centre, employment space, and new schools on a greenfield land area on the border of Gravesham.
Other areas facing significant potential development under this version of the plan are the Capstone Valley (nearly 4,000 homes), Chatham Docks, Lower Twydall, and substantial areas of Strood town centre.
The Politics
Of course, any plan like this will be contentious, which Cllr Curry acknowledged. “Not everybody is going to be happy,” but he highlights that the new version of the plan is primarily based on “the feedback we’ve had from the community.” He pointed out that the Hoo Peninsula now has half the number of homes that were proposed in the previous version of the plan and that most people will accept that new homes do need to be built somewhere. Health facility capacity is often raised as a concern around new developments, but the plan is clear that a new hospital is not on the cards for Medway. We asked Cllr Curry whether the capacity in the plan will be enough. “I hope so,” he told us, highlighting new facilities like the healthy living centre in the Pentagon and the potential NHS use of the former Debenhams building, but that “we rely on our health colleagues.”
Cllr Andrew Lawrence, shadow cabinet member for Regeneration, Community and Housing, told us that his Conservative group had concerns around four key areas: Health capacity, utilities, transport funding, and how the plan may change Medway as a place. He told us, “We acknowledge the need for housing, but it must be infrastructure-led and sustainable, acknowledging the impact on local communities affected by large-scale development over a prolonged period.”
Cllr Michael Pearce, Deputy Leader of the Independent Group, told us that he doesn’t have a settled view on the plan yet, and each member of his group will decide following the debate on Thursday.
Cllr Chris Spalding, independent councillor for All Saints, which covers Grain, Stoke, and Allhallows on the Hoo Peninsula told us, “As a ward councillor whose rural villages were facing 2000 new homes but are now getting less than 100, I am delighted that my detailed representations have not just been listened to but acted upon.”
The vote on the Local Plan this Thursday shouldn’t be whipped, and councillors are not allowed to pre-determine the matter without hearing the full details of the plan and the debate on the night.
Of course, that doesn’t necessarily stop any of them from doing so. Cllr Stephen Hubbard, Labour councillor for Strood North and Frindsbury, has publicly posted on local Facebook groups and emailed residents to tell them that he will not support the plan, which appears to breach the rules on pre-determination. While it is unlikely that his vote alone could put the passing of the plan in jeopardy, it has led to disgruntled Labour activists expressing their discontent with his actions.
One activist, speaking to us anonymously, told us:
“No one expects everyone to agree with every detail of a Local Plan – and let’s be honest, plenty of councillors past and present have campaigned against developments in certain areas over the years which are now in the plan. That’s part of standing up for your community. But elected representatives need to be both principled and pragmatic – because if no one ever compromised to deliver something bigger, better and much needed for the greater public good, then politics wouldn’t function at all.
The fact that Stephen Hubbard seems to think his own objections and previous positions matter more than anyone else’s – and more than delivering a long-overdue, desperately needed Local Plan for all of Medway – is frankly disappointing, but sadly not surprising.”
We reached out to Cllr Hubbard to ask him for comment, but received no response.
The Potential
Assuming Medway’s administration can get this Local Plan passed on Thursday, the timeline for it being fully approved by the Planning Inspectorate and on the books is by December 2026. This is a fairly bold timeline given that some plans take much longer, but Cllr Curry told us that the Planning Inspectorate has “reassured us that they can get it through next year.”
Whether or not that actually happens remains to be seen, but right now, we are closer to having a Local Plan in Medway than we have been in a very long time. All eyes will be on Thursday’s meeting and whether Medway Council can actually get it over the line.
The Plead
The Local Plan is a meaty document, running at 475 pages, and the best part of 1,000 more in supplementary documents. We have inevitably missed interesting bits of local data that might be hidden within it. As such, we’re going to try a little crowdsourcing experiment. We’re asking you to browse through the documents, and if you spot anything that raises an eyebrow or something relevant to your area that seems interesting, drop us an email on hello(at)localauthority(dot)news - Thanks!
In brief
🇵🇸 Protestors from the Medway Palestinian Campaign protested outside BAE Systems in Rochester last Tuesday. Hundreds of activists joined them from across the southeast as they criticised the company’s ongoing supply of weapons parts being used by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza.
🚧 The bottom of Richmond Road in Gillingham has been closed since Thursday after a sinkhole caused by a broken sewer pipe appeared.
🐐 Goats and pigs from the Waggon at Hale pub in Chatham have been handed over to an animal sanctuary after the owner declined to obtain a licence to house them. In recent months, the pub has been criticised for the conditions in which the animals were being kept.
🎫 Tickets for one of this year’s Rochester Castle Live events are selling so sluggishly that they are being offered a substantial discount on a seatfiller website. The Symphonic Ibiza event on Friday 4 July is being offered for £15 on Central Tickets, while promoter The Festival Crowd continues to flog them for £35 to locals.
💨 Police have confiscated £45,000 worth of illegal vapes from Pav’s Phones and Vapes on Rochester High Street. Pav told KentOnline that he bought the stock in bulk last year before the ban on selling disposable vapes, and only learnt about the ban in January this year, several months after the government announced it. You might think that someone running a business with ‘Vapes’ in the name would be more aware of the rules around selling vapes, but here we are.
More Authority
For our weekend interview, Steven sat down with Janet Fischer, Chief Executive of Live Music Now and co-Chair of the Intra Community Trust. They talk about what brought her to the UK from Canada, the importance of live music, the work of the trust, how she came to own a minesweeper boat, Canadian politics, and lots more.
“There is a huge amount of value in the work that musicians do”
As part of our seemingly ongoing North American series, Steven sat down with Canada’s Janet Fischer, Chief Executive of Live Music Now and co-Chair of the Intra Community Trust. They met at No.64 in Intra to talk about what brought her to the UK, and ultimately to Medway, the work of the Intra Community Trust, how she came to own a minesweeper, Canadian politics, and lots more.
Footnotes
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: Giant by Herman Dune, More Break-Up Songs by New Starts, and Ed Buys Houses by Sidney Gish.
And it went through! Who’d’ve thought it?
Potential story idea - what is that concrete shell next to St Mary's Catholic Primary School on Railway Street in Gillingham? It looks like a new school but nothing seems to have been happening on it for months. What has been spent so far and what is the problem with the project?