School Streets fine overturned at Medway’s busiest site

Could Medway be facing a mass voiding of its School Streets fines? A tribunal has overturned one at Medway's busiest site due to inadequate signage. We look at what that means for the broader scheme. We also report on the jailing of a man involved in Medway’s illegal flag-raising campaign after a public order offence against elected representatives, examine a new litter project on Luton Road that sounds frankly horrendous, round up the week's news in brief, and more.

Tribunal overturns School Streets fine at Medway’s busiest site

A School Streets fine issued by Medway Council at Richmond Road in Gillingham has been overturned by an independent traffic penalty tribunal after an adjudicator found that signage at the site was inadequate.

The ruling, first reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, relates to the School Streets restriction outside Burnt Oak Primary School. The motorist appealed after arguing that it was not clear they were entering a restricted zone until it was too late to avoid it safely. Medway Council rejected the appeal, but the tribunal later allowed it on the basis that warning signage was insufficient.

The tribunal’s full written decision has not been published. Medway Council has said it will review the ruling, but there has been no public indication that signage at the Richmond Road site will be changed, despite concerns having previously been raised about visibility for drivers approaching from certain routes.

The location is already the most productive School Streets site in Medway. Local Authority reporting has previously shown that Burnt Oak Primary School accounts for a disproportionate share of penalties, with drivers being caught at extremely high rates during operating hours.

In the first year of enforcement, Medway Council has issued 16,950 fines across the initial seven locations. Hundreds of motorists have successfully appealed, but most penalties are paid without challenge. The council has continued to expand the scheme, despite criticism of consultation processes, scheme design, and the heavy reliance on camera enforcement.

The tribunal decision does not automatically invalidate other penalties issued at Richmond Road or elsewhere. Each case must still be considered individually. However, it does establish that an independent adjudicator has found the signage at this specific location inadequate, which may prompt further appeals from motorists who believe the restrictions were not clearly communicated.

Some drivers have claimed on social media that they have already won appeals at the same location. Those claims cannot be independently verified, but they add to a pattern of ongoing concern around enforcement at Richmond Road.

School Streets are intended to improve safety and reduce congestion outside schools. Medway Council maintains that the scheme is making a positive difference. The tribunal ruling, however, leaves the authority to continue enforcing one of its highest-yield locations at a site where signage has now been found wanting, without any clear public explanation of what will change as a result.

Flagger who harassed politicians jailed

A man who has been a visible participant in Medway’s recent illegal flag-raising campaign has been jailed after admitting a series of motoring offences, alongside a public order offence involving the abuse of elected representatives.

Sam Turner, 41, of Gordon Road, Gillingham, appeared at Maidstone Magistrates’ Court earlier this month, where he pleaded guilty to using threatening or abusive behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, contrary to Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. The offence related to an incident on 6 February in Waterloo Road, Gillingham, when Medway Council leader Cllr Vince Maple, Gillingham and Rainham MP Naushabah Khan, and other Labour activists were canvassing locally.

Turner was fined £270 for the public order offence. He also pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified, driving without insurance, and driving while using a mobile phone, all committed on the same day as the confrontation with the Labour group. For those offences, he was sentenced to two months in prison and disqualified from driving for five years and three months.

The court also dealt with a separate set of offences from May this year, when Turner again drove while disqualified and uninsured, and exceeded the speed limit. He received a further four-month prison sentence for those offences, ordered to run consecutively. In total, the court imposed a six-month custodial sentence.

In a KentOnline opinion column published after the hearing, Cllr Maple said the district judge had made clear that Turner’s behaviour was unacceptable, not only because of its impact on those targeted, but because intimidation of this kind risks deterring people from taking part in democratic life.

Turner filmed the February confrontation himself and later posted the footage to social media. In the video, he repeatedly challenges the canvassers, makes unfounded claims about criminality among politicians, and argues that immigration policy favours migrants over “English people”.

Turner might be a familiar figure to readers who have followed Medway’s flag controversy. He has repeatedly posted videos of himself illegally erecting Union Jacks and St George’s flags on lampposts and roundabouts across the towns.

The court case is the latest in a lengthy criminal history. Turner was convicted in 2021 of burgling Gillingham Football Club’s Priestfield Stadium on more than one occasion, offences that were captured on CCTV. During one of them, he stole a safe from inside the ground and dragged it down several flights of stairs before hauling it to his nearby home in Gordon Road. Police followed the trail of scrape marks left along the pavement directly back to the property, where the safe was recovered from his garden.

His social media accounts also show attendance at anti-immigration protests elsewhere in Kent and the sharing of conspiracy-themed content, including posts opposing vaccination, attacking Islam, promoting figures associated with the far-right protest movement, and repeating antisemitic conspiracy narratives. These posts remain publicly available on Turner's accounts.

The conviction places a clear line between protest and criminality. While flag-raising, marches and online commentary have been defended by participants as expressions of opinion, the court found that Turner’s behaviour towards elected representatives crossed the threshold into a criminal public order offence, compounded by repeated breaches of driving bans already imposed by the courts.

For Medway, the case underlines how a campaign that presented itself as a symbolic protest has spilt into illegality, intimidation and, ultimately, custody. Polyester flags on lampposts were never the story on their own. What matters is where this kind of behaviour ends up when it stops being theatre and starts colliding with the law.

Bins on Luton Road now play sounds when you use them

Public litter bins along Luton Road in Chatham have been fitted with speakers that play audio when rubbish is deposited, thanking users, playing recorded messages from local children, or emitting short beatbox sounds.

The bins form part of HEARD, a project led by arts organisation Ideas Test, which set out to consult with residents in the Luton area and respond to issues they identified. According to the project information, 34 community members were involved in meetings that highlighted three priorities: dealing with litter, creating youth programmes, and holding a multicultural community event. Ideas Test says it decided it was best placed to focus on litter.

The audio installations were developed with artist Thor McIntyre-Burnie of Aswarm. The beats were created by pupils at Luton Primary School and Phoenix Primary School in workshops led by beatboxer Rupert Oldridge, who has also been running fortnightly beatboxing litter picks with volunteers along Luton Road.

The project is funded through the Creative Health Medway Place Partnership Programme, backed by Arts Council England investment and developed in collaboration with Medway Council’s culture and public health teams and Creative Medway.

Cllr Simon Curry, Medway Council’s waste portfolio holder, said the authority was “incredibly proud” to be supporting the project. Luton councillor Joanne Howcroft-Scott said she was “absolutely loving the new Beatbox’n Bins,” describing them as “fun, creative and brilliant” and “a joyful way to build pride in our community.”

The project has been presented as a creative response to littering and wellbeing. In practice, it means bins along one of Chatham’s busiest roads now play sounds at passers-by when rubbish is deposited. An approach that will perhaps test the patience of residents less keen on being thanked, addressed, or beatboxed at by street furniture.

In brief

😷 Medway Hospital has reintroduced masking for staff, patients and visitors following a sharp rise in flu cases this winter.

🏥 Plans for a new health centre in the former Debenhams building on Chatham High Street have been abandoned after the NHS couldn't find funding to proceed with the project.

🏚️ HMO landlords have gone on a charm offensive to KentOnline after Medway Council announced plans to make it harder for new ones to open.

🏗️ 42 new flats on disused land in the centre of Chatham have been approved. The developer argued that it would not be viable to provide any affordable housing as part of the proposals.

🗄️ An Environmental Impact Assessment scoping opinion has been submitted to Medway Council regarding a potential 100 home development to the southwest of Cliffe.

🚲 The government has awarded Medway Council £1.7m for walking and cycling schemes.

🍻 The landlords of the Rising Sun pub in Rochester are to step away after more than three years in charge.

🌳 Luton Road is now tree-lined for the first time in its history.

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