This evening, Thursday 26th June, members of the Medway Conservative Group voted against the proposed submission draft of the Medway Local Plan, at a special meeting of Medway Council. Medway Conservatives, whilst committed to Medway having an up-to-date local plan, raised concerns about the plan due to significant concerns about infrastructure and its impact on Medway – the place.
During the meeting, in response to the Portfolio Holder, Medway Conservatives Leader and Leader of the Opposition Cllr George Perfect outlined four principal objections to the local plan, based around the following:
- Health: Medway is not starting on a level playing field. There are significant challenges that our local healthcare services face. A GP crisis, a hospital with aging infrastructure in desperate need of a long-term plan, and a lack of community services for our people. Adding potentially in excess of a further 50,000 residents to this, without a clear plan or any investment from the government, will put our critical medical infrastructure in an even more precarious state.
- Pressure on our already overwhelmed utilities services: the plan is not built on infrastructure that will deliver for the long term.
- Transport services: this local plan fails to deliver a long transport plan, without plans for key critical junctions, roads that are already over capacity, and a railway network creaking and in urgent need of investment. There are currently no plans for any significant infrastructure investment from the new Government.
- Impact on Medway the place: this plan will significantly change the face of our five towns and the Peninsula. It will see massive change to all areas of Medway, and Medway Conservatives worry it is not considering the change of communities in the whole.
Medway Conservatives also highlighted the broken promises from the Labour administration, including their failure to protect the Chatham Docks, which they promised to protect in opposition, along with the significant amounts of development across Capstone and the Hoo Peninsula.
Cllr George Perfect, Leader of the Opposition, said:
“We recognise the need for a Local Plan, however, that plan must be the right plan. I cannot support a local plan that fails so critically on infrastructure and therefore voted against that plan tonight.
We are committed to getting the necessary infrastructure improvements that the people of Medway have rightly called for, and as the Regulation 19 now moves forward we will continue to make representations to the Planning Inspectorate.
We must be under no illusions, this local plan is the Labour Party’s Local Plan, and tonight they have voted for 28,000 additional homes by 2041 without any support from Government to Medway’s critical infrastructure”
Cllr Phil Filmer, Shadow Cabinet Member for Planning and Development:
“I am clear, not only must all building in Medway be brownfield first, but it must have infrastructure always front and centre. Tonight’s disastrous local plan considers neither of these and allows for a significant number of homes to be built right across Medway without the right critical infrastructure and development and ignores the impact on existing local communities.
This is Medway Labour’s local plan, doing the Labour Government’s bidding who have set a housing target for Medway that is unachievable. Medway Labour made promises to residents and workers whilst in Opposition, Chatham Docks and Capstone Valley as two examples and yet in power have broken these promises in a blink of eye.”
