Medway Local Plan (Regulation 18, 2024)

In my opinion, this is the wrong approach. There are a large number of large brownfield sites within Medway that must be preferentially utilised for housing first. A large number of these are in urban and suburban locations and therefore will be better served by existing infrastructure,

Expanding housing in small rural locations will place unsustainable pressure on services including water, drainage and roads as well as public transport, doctors and schools.

Medway Council does not have the funds to adequately provide the required services.

It is not acceptable to utilise greenfield sites while there are brownfield sites available.

In my opinion this policy is important to protect the night sky for all to enjoy. Sky Glow is incessantly increasing in all areas of Medway and gradually reducing the amount of stars, constellations, meteor showers, galaxies and nebulae that can be seen by Medway residents. For example, there are now only a few areas in Medway where the brightest parts of the Milky Way galaxy can be seen and constellations are gradually being lost to sky glow with many only being visible on the darkest of nights and even then in some instances only their brightest stars can be seen. This is a great loss to everyone as a comprehension of our place in the universe can greatly raise awareness of the natural world and its finite resources and why these need to be protected?

Sky Glow is caused by such things as: street lights, decorative up-lighting of buildings, internal shop lighting, external sign lighting plus external garden lighting. It impacts on the local environment as well as across LA boundaries. This is a gradual process of increasing sky brightness that needs to be halted and reversed. This can only be done if there are regular surveys carried out at appropriate times of night (no Moon) and the results recorded in absolute units, e.g. using a regularly calibrated Sky Quality Meter (SQM) to measure the amount of light from the night-time sky in terms of magnitudes per square arcsecond or similar. In this way the gradual increase will be detectable before it goes unnoticed and it is too late. There needs to be an initial survey to capture the current sky brightness levels to act as a baseline against which to monitor improvements.

Sky Glow is like air pollution and crosses LA boundaries. The light domes generated above urban and industrial areas have a far ranging impact on general sky brightness. Therefore it is necessary for Medway to work with neighbouring local authorities to reduce sky glow across the whole area.

Medway also needs to work with National Highways to reduce the Sky Glow caused by the M2 motorway lighting schemes. In recent years the motorway lights were turned off at midnight to save on energy costs. Now that lighting costs have fallen due to the introduction of LED lighting, street lighting is being left on for longer. It is important to limit the use of street lighting which is usually broad spectrum (white/blue white). This cannot be filtered out when observing the night sky through telescopes etc., as it is the same colour as many of the stars and other interesting objects in the night sky.

There needs to be a curfew across Medway for all non-essential external lighting, including street lighting, which should be set to come into force soon after the end of evening Astronomical Twilight.

Planning consents should not be awarded to schemes which are likely to cause an increase in Sky Glow from Light Glare, Light Spillage and Light Intrusion especially in the darkest Kent Downs National Landscape ANOBs.

The Green Belt is particularly narrow to the West of Medway and must be protected at all costs. Therefore, there must be a presumption against any development in this area especially where it lies within the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty National Landscape. Any development that will spoil the existing views from the Kent Downs by being totally out of character or causing light pollution must not be permitted.

It should be noted that The Greenbelt is also very narrow between Cuxton and Gravesend and therefore must be maintained to ensure protection for the rural village of Cuxton.

There needs to be a pro-active policy of maintaining green spaces between rural villages and between rural villages and urban areas to maintain the individual character of Medway's rural villages. To prevent the green lungs around villages being eroded away new development proposals should not be permitted in green lung areas.