Medway Local Plan (Regulation 18, 2024)

The RSPB’s preferred spatial growth option would be option SGO 1, as it avoids harmful development close to sensitive wildlife sites on the Hoo Peninsula, in particular Northward Hill SSSI and RSPB nature reserve and Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill SSSI. However, we would broadly support the Council’s preferred option, option SGO 3, if the potential allocations close to Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill SSSI and Northward Hill SSSI were removed, due to the likely negative impacts they will have on the designated sites. This includes allocations HHH3, HHH4, HHH6 (at least part of), SR14 and HHH26.

Should the Council select either option SGO 2 or the currently preferred option SGO 3, we consider that a strategic mitigation approach will be absolutely essential in order to protect the Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill SSSI. A key feature of such a mitigation strategy should be a 400m buffer to prevent net new residential development in the closest proximity to the SSSI. As we have previously advised the Council, developers are unlikely to be able to mitigate urban impacts (in particular cat predation) within this distance of the SSSI. Therefore, housing development in this zone is highly likely to lead to adverse effects on the nightingale population, which will require compensatory habitat to be provided. In line with the ‘mitigation hierarchy’ set out in the NPPF, developments that cannot mitigate their impacts on the SSSI features will need to show there are no less damaging alternatives before they can proceed to the last resort of compensation. Given that the Urban Growth option, SGO1, demonstrates that alternative locations for new housing are available in Medway, we consider that such housing would not comply with the NPPF. Therefore, without a clear policy approach in place for the Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill SSSI, the draft Medway Local Plan also strongly risks being found unsound due to a failure to comply with the NPPF.

The RSPB considers that the Bird Wise SAMMS reflects the current best available evidence on how to address in combination impacts from recreational disturbance as a result of increased residential development close to the coastal Special Protection Areas/Ramsar/SSSI. This strategy includes monitoring to ensure that this approach continues to be effective and the Local Plan should ensure that it supports this strategy and any future updates. For sites that may have an impact on these sites on their own due to proximity or size it is important that they may need to deliver additional mitigation plus the SAMMS contribution. Therefore, we are pleased to see acknowledgement of the importance of functionally linked land and we agree with the statement All new development which is located within close proximity to the North Kent Estuary and Marshes designated sites (listed above) may also need to provide further mitigation measures to address urbanisation impacts.
The land allocated for potential housing to the SE of Cliffe Pools, Site SR6, raises concerns of exacerbating recreational disturbance impacts to RSPB Cliffe Pools (part of the Thames Estuary and Marshes SPA/Ramsar site) that may not be mitigable through Bird Wise contributions alone due to proximity and scale of the housing. We urge that evidence is sort to demonstrate that harmful impacts from recreational disturbance could be avoided or adequately mitigated before the site is put forward for allocation. There must be policy here to include further assessment to inform robust mitigation measures, in addition to the SAMMS.

The RSPB supports Medway’s efforts to connect ecologically important sites, reflecting the ‘bigger, better and more joined-up’ recommendations of the Lawton Principles. We would like to see these corridors being given a status that supports appropriately establishing, protecting and maintaining them in practice, otherwise they risk being just limited to ambition in a strategy. A great deal of work has gone into the forthcoming Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) (‘Making Space for Nature’) across Kent and Medway, and it is vital that there is consistency with proposed corridors and priority habitat enhancement and key areas identified within the LNRS – therefore we agree with 4.6.6 This work will be further developed in the Kent and Medway Local Nature Recovery Strategy. When pursuing this policy, the Council should ensure directing access away from ecologically sensitive sites and functionally linked land where disturbance may impact wildfowl, waders and other wildlife. Pursuing this policy should also include awareness of important sites for declining farmland birds such as turtle dove, for which Medway is very important. The Kent Ornithological Society (KOS) has produced some maps identifying core areas of farmland birds in Medway, including areas where they are declining and need intervention. Such key areas include coastal parts of the Hoo Peninsula, especially the north-east and north-west corners, and the area around Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill SSSI. The map shows a potential corridor around Lodge Hill SSSI and this could be used to serve as part of the 400-metre buffer to protect the SSSI in perpetuity. This would also help connect key nightingale populations and facilitate their spread. We recommend that these areas be factored into ecological corridors as a priority. We would be keen to assist with this and we suggest Medway works with the RSPB and KOS to help inform this work.

What are the most important issues for you in planning new developments?

For the RSPB, it is to ensure that the allocation of residential sites is well away from sensitive areas such as Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill SSSI, and sustainable locations close to existing transport links and community facilities are prioritised.

In addition to the important issues specific to Medway that we have raised in this response, the RSPB recommends that the following steps are taken from the RSPB’s Nature Friendly Design – the Essential Checklist document. This will help ensure that people and nature can thrive together These five steps are as follows, with key measures summarised:

1.Considering nature from the outset: Ensure that ecology and landscape design is reflected in proposed schemes from the very beginning, including playing a pivotal role in masterplanning and pre-application discussions.

2. Drainage and water management that works with nature: Schedule 3 of the Flood Water Management Act should be mandated to deliver better Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) design and adoption to better mitigate for extreme weather events, increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change. Sustainable Drainage Systems should prioritise above ground soft landscape rather than hard engineering solutions such as pipe to basin.

3. Planting for people and wildlife: development landscape schemes should be specifically required to provide greater climate resilience, public amenity, and biodiversity value and benefits.

4. Design features for target species: specific design elements should be required to be installed in new developments providing homes for target species and allow free passage through the urban environment. All new houses must include integral nest and roost provision for Swifts and bats, and garden boundaries must not act as a barrier to ground dwelling wildlife.

5. Ensuring long-term maintenance and stewardship: nature-friendly measures incorporated into design of new developments and their landscaping, together with monitoring of the delivery and success of Biodiversity Net Gain and Urban Greening Factor measures post-development, must be suitably funded by the development.

What are the key issues that you want the local plan to address, and how?

The global and local effects of the twin climate change and biodiversity crises are becoming increasingly clear. We believe it is therefore imperative that Medway Council does its part to help reverse these trends (and deliver on its enhanced biodiversity duties under the Environment Act) by ensuring that development coming forward under a new Medway Local Plan is located in the most sustainable locations. This means firstly prioritising less harmful locations over sites located close to important areas for biodiversity and, where impacts cannot be avoided, establishing robust and sustainable mitigation strategies to protect designated wildlife sites. It also means taking steps to help restore nature in line with local nature recovery strategies.

In particular, we wish to see the new plan steer housing development away from the Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), and establish a robust strategic approach to ensure that the UK’s most important site for breeding nightingales is safeguarded from the damaging urbanisation effects (such as cat predation and recreational disturbance) arising from any essential residential development that cannot be located in less sensitive areas. Such a strategic approach is critical to delivering an effective, sustainable policy for this unique natural asset (for which Medway Council have a particular responsibility to protect), offering clarity for developers and security for Medway Council.

We would also like to see the new plan address increasing residential pressures arising from new housing developments close to important coastal areas for wintering and breeding waterbirds in Medway. Given the significant increase in volume of new housing planned across the Hoo Peninsula, it is particularly important that the plan establishes clear policies to ensure that measures are in place to prevent new residential development from adding to the pressures on these important bird populations. Location of non-residential development in these sensitive locations will also need to be carefully considered in terms of sustainability and impacts of associated transport infrastructure.

Finally, we wish to see the new plan address the need for ecological corridors to connect sites and key populations of declining birds, such as nightingales and farmland birds, and to ensure these corridors are designed based on relevant data and are given robust status in planning.

Urban regeneration also brings opportunities to improve biodiversity, development should design with nature from the outset. These could include mandatory swift bricks for all new buildings of two storeys or higher (apart from rare exceptions) as has been effectively included in other Local Plans e.g. Brighton and Hove, SUDS pond/drainage schemes, native and locally-sourced planting or natural regeneration where appropriate, allowing less managed areas in places with paths through and edges trimmed to show they are deliberate, planning around green spaces, connecting through green corridors, limiting light pollution, and making these aims clear in policy wording. The importance of wildlife and green spaces to also contribute to human wellbeing should be recognised. It is also essential that the value of brownfield sites is properly captured as these can support high biodiversity and potential of rare species. 

The RSPB recommends that the following steps are taken, from the RSPB’s Nature Friendly Design – the Essential Checklist document: 1.Considering nature from the outset 2. Drainage and water management that works with nature 3. Planting for people and wildlife 4. Design features for target species, such as Swifts 5. Ensuring long-term maintenance and stewardship

What are the most important issues for you in planning new developments?

For the RSPB, it is to ensure that the allocation of residential sites is well away from sensitive areas such as Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill SSSI, and sustainable locations close to existing transport links and community facilities are prioritised.

In addition to the important issues specific to Medway that we have raised in this response, the RSPB recommends that the following steps are taken from the RSPB’s Nature Friendly Design – the Essential Checklist document. This will help ensure that people and nature can thrive together These five steps are as follows, with key measures summarised:

1.Considering nature from the outset: Ensure that ecology and landscape design is reflected in proposed schemes from the very beginning, including playing a pivotal role in masterplanning and pre-application discussions.

2. Drainage and water management that works with nature: Schedule 3 of the Flood Water Management Act should be mandated to deliver better Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) design and adoption to better mitigate for extreme weather events, increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change. Sustainable Drainage Systems should prioritise above ground soft landscape rather than hard engineering solutions such as pipe to basin.

3. Planting for people and wildlife: development landscape schemes should be specifically required to provide greater climate resilience, public amenity, and biodiversity value and benefits.

4. Design features for target species: specific design elements should be required to be installed in new developments providing homes for target species and allow free passage through the urban environment. All new houses must include integral nest and roost provision for Swifts and bats, and garden boundaries must not act as a barrier to ground dwelling wildlife.

5. Ensuring long-term maintenance and stewardship: nature-friendly measures incorporated into design of new developments and their landscaping, together with monitoring of the delivery and success of Biodiversity Net Gain and Urban Greening Factor measures post-development, must be suitably funded by the development.

The RSPB urges the implementation of a strategic approach to protecting Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill SSSI with protection of the existing nightingale population as a key objective, including the stipulation of a default minimum 400m buffer around Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill SSSI within which no net new residential units would be permitted. Nightingales are a key reason why the SSSI is designated. This buffer zone has been our consistent position for many years and is based on the best available evidence from comparable situations regarding urbanisation effects elsewhere, such as the Thames Basin Heaths. Unless robust new evidence is forthcoming to demonstrate that the SSSI and its nightingale population can be effectively and sustainably protected from the long-term, insidious impacts of urbanisation, alternative sites must be identified for the relatively small quantity of new housing being considered in this zone. Instead, these sites could be considered for green infrastructure or non-residential development which would safeguard the nightingale populations in perpetuity and support local communities.

In accordance with the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) paragraphs 179 and 180, it is our view that there should be a strategy created to incorporate a buffer zone (applicable to residential development) of at least 400 metres around the length of the SSSI’s boundary in order to avoid likely harm. This distance is based on our understanding of the available scientific evidence of cat roaming distances and the acceptance by decision-makers that it is generally not possible to mitigate the acute impacts of housing located in such close proximity to the protected sites. In addition, it would reduce a number of other well-documented urban effects, including recreational disturbance (where access to the SSSI allows), noise, artificial light and uncontrolled fires. This clear policy would help ensure the protection and conservation of Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill SSSI for the future and would also be consistent with Policy S5 in the Regulation 18 plan, in that: a high level of protection from damaging impacts of development will be given to Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Ancient Woodland.

Without a robust strategy in place, the Council can expect more housing developments coming forward around the SSSI with unevidenced, untested and/or unenforceable mitigation, such as the pet covenants which have controversially been agreed as part of the Cliffe Woods development, despite the lack of evidence or mechanism for enforcement. We find it difficult to understand how the proposed allocation sites around the SSSI can be justified given the clear alternative, less damaging locations for this quantum of housing, or why less impactful non-residential uses are not instead being considered for these sites. Crucially, such a strategy would offer clarity for developers and protect Medway Council from a further applications for inappropriate and unplanned development, and the challenge for those developers to show there are no less damaging options available to them. For example, the recent developer appeal for housing at Lodge Hill Lane alongside the SSSI that was turned down in March by the Planning Inspectorate, in which the RSPB fully supported Medway Council’s initial refusal on the grounds of unmitigated damage to the nightingale population. This is a case where a clear Council strategy would have helped.

The RSPB is keen to see the wildlife interest of the SSSI and other sites promoted and celebrated as a positive asset that will boost pride in the area, as opposed to the notoriety of losing the country’s most important site for nightingales if these concerns are not heeded.

BNG: Canterbury City Council has an aim of 20% and Medway could be ambitious and aim for 20%, which would prove better value for money. We are in a biodiversity crisis and therefore we would encourage the Council to be ambitious in measures to help address issues threating biodiversity, including habitat loss and to restore nature’ give the high number of priority species and designated nature sites across the Medway area.

Northward Hill/High Halstow:
A large site identified in High Halstow at Britannia Road, HHH26, is close to High Halstow National Nature Reserve (NNR) and in close proximity to Northward Hill RSPB reserve and SSSI. We consider this creates extra pressures on the wildlife and the maintenance of the site, in the form of increased recreational disturbance from people, including dog walking, vandalism and other urban impacts. The RSPB has not yet been able to agree a suitable mitigation strategy with the applicant of the Britannia Road site and we would therefore caution allocation of this and other sites in the area. If progressed, policy wording will need to added to ensure these impacts are appropriately assessed and mitigation designed to address and appropriately protect these sites.