The Consultation states:
“The plan’s vision is to establish Medway as a leading regional city, connected to its surrounding coast and countryside; with a thriving economy, where residents enjoy a good quality of life and there is a clear strategy for addressing climate change and strengthening natural assets.”

A fundamental part of the overall Vision for Medway should be a positive and proactive approach to support new development.

It is acknowledged that the Vision for Medway has been established through the recognition that there are marked differences in health and wellbeing across communities in Medway. The Vision places people at the centre of the Plan, and places importance on Medway being a healthy place to live, including high quality, well designed housing. Essential to this is providing for the diverse communities by taking into account the needs of different sectors of the community.

Our client supports the Vision and wishes to reiterate the important contribution that the future development of the Site can make toward achieving this.

In relation to housing delivery, our client supports the vision for ‘providing for healthier and more sustainable choices of homes’. However, we believe the Vision should go further, and proactively encourage and support the delivery of housing based on meeting the existing and projected needs as a minimum. We also believe that the Vision should be clear in the priority being for housing to be located within the existing urban areas, with specific concentration on making effective use of land. The Vision should be clear in the importance of giving substantial weight to the value of using suitable brownfield land within settlements for homes and other identified needs, in accordance with the aims of the NPPF .

The Vision identifies the importance of the urban waterfront and states that there should be continuous paths with attractive and healthy connections, and the development of the Site can assist in achieving this aim.

The Site intends to provide a mixed-use scheme which will allow for daily needs to be met within the development, in line with the aims of the Vision.

The overall Vision will also need to be reflected in both the strategic and detailed development management policies of the future Local Plan, as it progresses.

References to ‘the Site’ mean Site Ref: GN6 (Gillingham No.3 and 4) identified in the Land Availability Assessment 2023 and as fully detailed in our letter of representations submitted to the Council