What lies ahead for Medway
2025 could bring big changes to our towns
Welcome back to the first Local Authority of 2025. I hope you’ve had a restful period. Today isn’t a usual Friday edition. Our usual arts and culture briefing will return next week, but this week, we will look at what lies ahead for our towns in the coming year. It could be quite a ride.
Somehow, elections still matter
For the last two years, we’ve known at the start of the year that elections would play a big part of the news year. Each of them turned out to be fairly monumental, too. 2023 saw Labour take control of Medway Council for the first time in over two decades, while last year saw the party capture all three Medway parliamentary constituencies for the first time since 2010.
This year, we shouldn’t be troubled by elections. By-elections are precisely what we are getting though, with three council elections taking place on 6 February. Two seats in Rochester East and Warren Wood are up for grabs, along with one in Gillingham South. Council by-elections aren’t usually hugely exciting, but these come with an extra element of peril for the Labour administration: If Labour fails to hold two or more of these seats, they will lose their overall majority on Medway Council.
This is, admittedly, a fairly extreme scenario. All three seats are relatively safe for Labour, and losing multiple seats would signal that something has gone very wrong. But by-elections are notoriously unpredictable things, and given public perception, we can’t rule out the possibility.
Even if Labour found themselves without an overall majority, it’s unlikely it would change very much. They would still be the largest party by some margin, and it seems unlikely that an alternative administration could be cobbled together from the Conservatives, the Independent Group, and whoever is newly elected. In this scenario, two independents on Medway Council would likely hold the balance of power, and with both being suspended Labour members, it seems unthinkable that they would do anything other than support their previous party.
We’ll have more details on the upcoming by-elections in our coming Tuesday edition, including a run-through of all candidates we’re currently aware of.
We’re going to be sick of hearing about devolution
Devolution will be one of the year's big stories, with the new Labour government forcing through a grand restructuring that will lead to nearly everywhere in the country having elected mayors with sweeping regional powers.
The mood music from Kent County Council and Medway Council is that both areas are comfortable accepting an elected power with strategic powers for the wider Kent area. This would see big issues like transport and large-scale planning falling under the new mayoral strategic authority, while councils underneath handle the more local issues.
Such is the government's enthusiasm for these changes, the deadline to apply to be one of the first areas to receive mayoral powers is next week. It is worth noting that Kent County Council is holding an extraordinary full council meeting on the issue next week, one day before the government deadline. Medway isn’t doing anything similar, but this is possibly because Kent is scheduled to hold county elections this year, and applying for powers with a planned 2026 introduction could see them being postponed. We’ll be watching that meeting next week with great interest, even if it is, for now, slightly beyond our patch.
As such, it seems inevitable that Kent and Medway will be within a strategic mayoral authority in as little as 18 months, with an elected mayor overseeing the big issues across the country. It’s a significant change in structure and would transfer sweeping new powers from the government to the area.
Medway Council likely won’t survive the next few years
Alongside the push for devolution, the government is also moving forward on plans to reorganise local government by abolishing district councils and small unitary authorities. The plan is for most areas to be covered by a unitary authority with a population of around 500,000. This is roughly double the size of Medway, meaning our area is almost certainly obliged to merge with a couple of other council areas to form a new, larger authority.
The government is giving local councils a period to decide who they want to merge with, leading to an awkward dance as district councils flirt with each other to avoid being the unpicked one at the dance. So far, it is unclear who will end up with whom, but we suggest we might get to know our neighbours in (at least) Gravesham and Swale somewhat better.
Councils have until later in the year to devise a plan to merge, or the government will force them together, which no doubt nobody will want. Getting councils to agree on the restructuring is likely to be a tougher sell than the devolution deals above. Still, assuming the government doesn’t lose their nerve, we will likely be looking at more significant unitary authorities replacing the existing councils by 2028. This will likely signal the end of Medway Council as it gets consumed into a new, larger authority covering a wider area. It also means that Medway Council’s planned 2027 elections could not happen, meaning we might have already had the final Medway Council elections.
Local Plan saga might reach cruel end
It is something of a joke at this point that Medway Council hasn’t had a valid Local Plan for many years, leading to predatory developments across the area. Fights to get a new Local Plan passed have been going on forever, when elected in 2023, Labour made it clear that getting one in place was a priority for the administration.
Since then, progress has been made on the new Local Plan. After multiple rounds of consultation and a government inspection, the intent is to have the plan in place by the end of 2026, just in time for Medway Council to no longer exist and for it all to be for nothing.
In the meantime, development will continue at pace across our towns. Medway Council has been granted planning permission for developments at pace over the past year. Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham, Strood, and the peninsula are all set to see progression on large-scale developments this year, including some prominent town centre locations.
Transport changes make things worse
Getting around Medway on public transport doesn’t seem like it will get any more pleasant this year. The new government has taken no action to make rail fares any cheaper, and they are set to increase by 4.6% in March. With the government starting to bring train operators back into public ownership, there is little indication that it will result in a better passenger experience.
Elsewhere, the bus fare cap of £2, a genuinely revolutionary policy, has increased by 50% to £3, returning fares closer to their unaffordable previous levels. Arriva, the near monopolistic bus operator in Medway, has taken the opportunity to abolish return fares, meaning that getting the bus between, say, Rainham and Strood is now a £12 return as it requires two buses in each direction.
Add into this the general unreliability of bus services in Medway, their inability to go anywhere other than Chatham, and a near complete lack of services in the evening, and cars once again are considerably more appealing than trying to use public transport.
Elsewhere
Kent Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Scott is set to publish a new Police and Crime Plan in April, which will set Kent Police’s priorities from 2025 to 2029.
Work is finally due to start on refurbishing the Brook Theatre this year, two years after it initially closed. Elsewhere, work should properly commence on the Docking Station project at Chatham Dockyard, creating a digital production hub.
New opening this year should see Lidl open in Strood, alongside new Tesco Express stores in Rochester and Gillingham. Hospitality wise, McDonald’s and Loungers are set to open at Dockside in Chatham.
What are you most looking forward to in 2025? What should happen to make Medway better? Let us know in the comments.
Footnotes
Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: Swear I’m Good At This by Diet Cig and Will Anything Happen by Shop Assistants.
Rochester, Strood, Chatham, Gillingham and Rainham should all now set up town councils to retain some local powers, decision making and local identity.
It seems that Councillor Pearce has a greater grasp of the threat to "localism" than many others! Surely, Medway Council will not cede any autonomy given what it has achieved since its formation?Yes, there have been errors and we all remember that a contributory factor leading to the demolition of the John Hawkins flyover was because ' it was a Kent CC idea'! The 5 towns of Medway and surrounding rural areas have a distinct identity and we know our Councillors and officers. There is an inherent contradiction effusively thanking our officers then saying we should merge with a neighbour when there maybe (and is) little cultural fit. Medway is not Birmingham, London or Manchester and the thought of an overaching Mayor for Medway is not credible. Have we voted for this?