Medway Local Plan (Regulation 18, 2024)

HMOs are awful for society, driven by greed from slum landlords. They should be permitted a temporary license to exist only for a short period of time, with the licensing cost being onerous and borne by the landlord. Lewisham's scheme is a good move in that direction.

Cuxton caravan park's residents cause a lot of problems for Cuxton's residents. I would expect Cuxton residents to be very upset with the plan to intensify its usage. I would not support an increase in its usage.

More broadly speaking, I struggle to see how these increasing targets are in keeping with any kind of regeneration strategy for Medway. I would have expected them to be decreasing.

I don't think the first two tests need to be quite as strict. If the current site is not in keeping with the desired economic mix (higher productivity) for Medway, then I do not think the site needs to also have been on the market for 12 months.

320,000 sqm for 4,000 additional jobs, ie 80 sqm per job, does not sound consistent with a much higher productivity Medway economy. Industry requiring this much space does not play into Medway's strengths (the river) nor the aspiration to have more higher value industry here.

According to Knight Frank https://www.knightfrank.co.uk/office-space/insights/culture-and-space/how-much-office-space-does-my-business-need/ in the city, an average space per employee is 100-200 sq ft (c. 10-20 sqm), and a "spacious office" typical with law firms and finance firms is 200-500 sq ft (c. 18-46 sqm).

well-meaning idea, awful location, awful name. If these types of offices and industries occupied the land where the medway city estate is, along with attractive riverside flats, then businesses from London could consider some relocation there.

High value industries do not just require offices. They need to attract high value employees to live nearby.

I can't hire the people I need for my finance or Artificial Intelligence businesses from these universities or colleges. There is not sufficient quality in their science offering (some has been moved back to Canterbury).

My AI business, Pilot Generative AI Ltd, is a research and development business. Please tell me how I can support the 'learning quarter' or any other area/establishment in Medway.

More convenience retail is a negative for a district centre like Rochester, which is very well established and has high tourism demand. More GVA would come from another restaurant or luxury shop.

Rochester centre is not a good place for residential occupation given the nightlife. To make it better for residential occupation would reduce its leisure and tourism offer, and thus negatively impact GVA.

Better quality public lavatories would dramatically improve the leisure and tourism offer.

A major improvement for Rochester would be a more active use of the river for taxi/ferry services.

The very poor quality of the road network linking the centres needs to be addressed here. If we were to utilise the water ways much more effectively, the distinct and complementary nature of each of the centres would be far more impactful.

Additionally to far better utilisation of the river medway for transport, adding back a tram network would make public transport much more acceptable to environmentally conscious current and future citizens of Medway.

Arriving into Chatham centre via any current transport means is an undesirable experience, not at all in keeping with a town that aspires to be a city centre. The road network is extremely offputting, for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. I don't see anything in these plans to change the structure of Chatham, other than to add more housing in. As it stands, with these plans, Chatham would struggle to be seen by visitors and residents as a city centre.

Much more ambition is needed. Chatham's naval history and its riverside location are its USPs.

The river medway can be a transport asset, dramatically cutting road usage, and can be a cutting-edge clean energy source. By 2041 it would be shocking not to be extracting its full potential in these respects.

The UK economy is 80% service sector, 20% manufacturing. Medway's economy does not reflect these proportions, being heavier on manufacturing, light on higher-value services. Moreover, if prime real estate such as the Medway city estate is still acting as a legacy manufacturing and storage area in 2041, Medway will still be trying to compete with cheaper economies further away from London, but with SE England labour and land costs. It makes no strategic sense to preserve this losing position.

The Medway city estate is a massive opportunity for regeneration away from low value (low GDP-per capita industries) to attractive housing, innovative new businesses (research and implementation into energy capture and storage from the river, for example). Setting this out in the plan will facilitate a much stronger Medway economy, while freeing up road and housing capacity. Think about how the Isle of Dogs has been transformed over the past 30 years. If we can achieve a fraction of that progress (without the high-rise building), bringing housing and high-value Research and Development business into Medway, the economic benefit will be enormous and existing road and river transport capacity will be released.