Medway Developer Contributions and Obligations Guide

This response is written on behalf of Taylor Wimpey, which has an interest in land west of Hoo St Werburgh. We welcome the opportunity to comment on the consultation draft of the Medway Developer Contributions and Obligations Guide (the ‘Guide’).

This response is intentionally focused on matters of process and soundness, rather than providing a detailed critique of the individual cost items or contribution requests set out within the Guide. Taylor Wimpey reserves the right to comment on the specifics of the document once the Guide has gone through a second consultation exercise following the conclusion of the examination towards the emerging Medway Local Plan and once sufficient viability testing of the Guide’s contents has been carried out (see further on these points below).

Taylor Wimpey has significant concerns regarding the timing of this consultation and the proposed adoption of the Guide as a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD). As currently presented, the Guide is intended to be adopted in advance of the emerging Medway Local Plan and, crucially, prior to the examination of its supporting evidence base, including the Local Plan Viability Assessment. In our view, this approach is premature.

The Guide is clearly derived from and intended to support the evidence prepared for the emerging Local Plan. The Guide itself states that: “For the purposes of preparing planning applications and their determination, this Guidance should be read alongside Development Plan Policies (Local Plans and Neighbourhood Plans) and relevant Supplementary Planning Documents. The Guide will also be used as the basis for Medway’s response to proposed strategic growth strategies, providing evidence for the infrastructure delivery planning and viability assessments that underpin the Local Plan.” However, the evidence which underpins the Guide has not yet been tested through the independent examination process. As such, there remains a real possibility that elements of the evidence base particularly in relation to viability may be subject to change. Proceeding to adopt the Guide ahead of this process risks embedding requirements that have not been robustly or independently validated.

For additional context, in relation to the examination of the emerging Local Plan, the Inspectors published a letter (MLP/ED5) with initial queries to the Council after they identified some areas of concern which require further clarification from the Council in the early stages of the examination process. In the letter the Inspector’s state that “Given that the examination of the Plan is currently at an early stage, its adoption is unlikely to occur during 2026”.

Taylor Wimpey consider that the correct and sound approach would be to first progress the emerging Local Plan through examination. This would allow for full scrutiny of the Local Plan Viability Assessment which is part of the emerging Local Plan’s evidence base as well as the associated evidence to ensure that policy requirements, including developer contributions, are found sound and deliverable in practice. Only once this process has concluded, and the evidence base has been confirmed as sound, the Council should then proceed with a further consultation on the Developer Contributions and Obligations Guide, prior to its adoption.

In addition to concerns regarding timing, we also note that the Guide, in its current form, lacks sufficient justification for the scale and nature of contributions being sought. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) at paragraph 58 sets out that planning obligations must only be sought when the following tests have been met:

a) necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms;

b) directly related to the development; and

c) fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to the development

In particular to the Guide, there is limited clarity on how the requested contributions directly relate to the Infrastructure Delivery Plan (IDP), how they have been derived and how they will directly contribute towards delivery of the infrastructure identified within the IDP. This issue is compounded by the absence of clear and robust viability testing to demonstrate that the cumulative impact of these obligations would not prejudice the deliverability of development across Medway, including the proposed site allocations in the emerging Local Plan. Thus, it is not clear that the contributions and obligations within the Guide meet the relevant tests specified in the NPPF.

These concerns are fundamental, the NPPF is clear at paragraph 35 that policies development contributions should not undermine the deliverability of the plan. This theme is expanded upon in the Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) which states “Viability assessment should not compromise sustainable development but should be used to ensure that policies are realistic, and that the total cumulative cost of all relevant policies will not undermine deliverability of the plan.”. PPG goes on to explain that it is the responsibility of plan makers to create realistic and deliverable policies. Without transparent justification and appropriate testing, it is not possible to conclude that the proposed approach taken in the Guide towards developer contributions and obligations meets the requirements specified in national planning policy.

Taylor Wimpey raised concerns about the evidence base including the Local Plan Viability Assessment during the Regulation 19 consultation in June last year as part of the Hoo Consortium (Church Commissioners; Dean Lewis Estates; Redrow; and Taylor Wimpey). We now note that the Viability Letter (Appendix B of the Hoo Consortium response, dated 11 August 2025), is marked as a ‘draft’ in error, however we confirm that this is the final version, and its contents still apply.

In that response it was considered that further evidence is required in respect of the following “Local Plan Strategic Issues”:

1. Detailed testing of the scope of the road improvement / mitigation schemes to ensure that the schemes to be delivered match the levels of planned growth;
2. Land assembly testing to verify ownerships and to determine whether third party land is necessary and if so, whether it can be acquired by private treaty or whether CPO will be required;
3. Detailed testing of the costs of the implementation of the agreed road improvement / mitigation schemes;
4. Detailed testing of the costs of the implementation of the education provision; and
5. Review and updating of the Viability Assessment in respect of S106 contributions and apportionment across the Plan Area.
In summary, Taylor Wimpey considers that:

• The consultation and proposed adoption of the Guide as an SPD is premature;
• The Guide has not been subject to adequate viability testing, particularly in the absence of an examined and confirmed Local Plan evidence base;
• There is insufficient justification provided for the contributions sought and their relationship to the IDP.
We therefore strongly recommend that the Council defer adoption of the Guide until after the conclusion of the Local Plan examination, and undertake a further round of consultation at that stage, informed by a fully tested and sound evidence base.

We trust these comments are helpful and would be pleased to engage further with the Council as the process progresses.