Labour group comments on the Chatham Dynamic Bus Station planning committee meeting

Date: 28th January 2010

Will Chatham Regret Tories’ Rushed Bus Station?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Last night the plans for the bus station were agreed, with all Conservative members now voting in favour, as the Labour Group had been predicting for months.
Chatham members especially had expressed their fears that despite the range of objections to the bus station the plans would be agreed in order to secure Government funding.
In their desperation to start work on the site, the request from Cllr Bill Esterson- ward member for the part of Chatham that includes the bus station- for a site visit was rejected by the Conservative members, thus restricting the input of residents.
Cllr Esterson said,
“In virtually every case, a site visit request from a ward member is honoured.  The fact that the Tories voted it down, for one of the biggest, most important and most contentious applications that’s been to this committee demonstrates how desperate they are, and their contempt for public opinion.”
“People have raised many compelling objections to this application, about the location, the trees, shelter and access.  The siting of this station will mean it’s difficult for less mobile residents to get their shopping to the station, and it will block off the river from the town, the very thing the Tories said they were trying to open up!”
“We will still be losing 19 mature trees as well.  I’m appalled by all of this, and think that people in Chatham have been badly let down by this bungling administration.  They’ve had four years to get it right, and we’ve ended up with this mess.”
Cllr Stephen Hubbard added,
“When the first bus station application was considered, Conservative members en bloc spoke against the application, raising a number of objections.  But last night they said that new application had addressed all the concerns raised.”
“Considering that only a few things that have changed from the first application –it’s a few metres to the east, a different set of trees are to be cut down- I think there may be other reasons behind their change of heart.”
“This bus station will go a long way to putting Chatham on the map, but not how the Tories intended.”

Ever had "Bad Thoughts"?

I had a few recently:

What if the proposed new bus station with its lack of shelter and facilities and less bus stops than now available in the Pentagon was actually a ruse to make people drive their cars into Chatham and pay exhorbitant parking charges to Medway Council. (Perish the thought!)

What if the council were just steamrollering through any old bus station without proper consultation or impact studies just to get the government hand-out of £6 Million? (Out Damn Spot!)

What if the council wanted to close the existing Pentagon bus station so that it could be turned into shops and increase the commercial rates paid to the council? (Hush-a-my mouth!)

What if there wasn't a huge majority of one party on the council - would it have made any difference - and if  so will anybody think about that on polling day? (Now you're being silly!)

What if somebody realises that the real "elephant in the room" is that monstrosity The Pentagon Shopping Centre and suggests pulling it down? (And pigs might fly!)

What if all occurances of the word "Regeneration" were replaced with the word "Resuscitation" on all the signs around the Medway Towns - would the public react more positively to this as being a description nearer to the truth? (Lies, lies and damn lies!)

I must stop eating so much cheese!

Mini model with huge drawbacks

Another letter about Chatham’s Dynamic Bus Station from Tracy Coutts of Chatham published in the Opinion column of the Medway Messenger on Friday 12th February 2010.

I went to see the council’s mock up of the new dynamic bus station on public display at Gun Wharf last week.
I don’t know quite what I was expecting, but perhaps the council has rather “bigged up” the dynamic bit?
After all the hype, there was I thinking there would be a grand exhibition with lights and a fanfare or maybe even a full-size bus shelter or two to try out.
Imagine my disappointment when all I could find was a titchy, tiny model on a side table, how sad.

This miniscule model with its little green lollipop trees reminded me of the decorations that you put on Christmas cakes.
But even though it is so small in size you won’t need a magnifying glass to see what the model lacks.
Isn’t it supposed to be a bus station, but where are all those queuing people and buses waiting to go out?

Now you may sneer, but perhaps this is one thing the council has got right, their future of Chatham in the future is of a ghost town.
Think about all the digging up and knocking down, tarmacing over and shops moving on.
Even if we do have 21st Century bus stops, who indeed will want to come here and what would they be coming here for?
Does the council really care, I have to wonder?

But I’d bet by the time we start looking for someone to blame, the architects of Chatham Town’s misfortune will all be long gone.

Chatham's Dynamic Bus Station - A Public Inquiry is called for!

This letter was written by Bryan Fowler, New Road, Chatham and was published in the Medway Messenger Opinion section (page 12) on Friday February 12^th 2010.

Public Inquiry is the only answer.

The controversy over the new dynamic bus station (reported in your paper) refuses to go away.

Questions now need to be answered by Medway Council why they are unwilling to allow residents and other interested parties to understand the issues behind this curious decision.

1. It was as recent as October 21, 2009 when an outline planning application was made to the Regeneration Overview Scrutiny Committee who received it in such a rush, it could not be included in their agenda papers seven days before the meeting.

Isn’t the scrutiny committee supposed to be the last point of review not the first and only point of debate for major regeneration projects?

2. A council officer wrote to overview and scrutiny members by email 60 minutes before the cabinet meeting on November 24 2009, to say that the vice-chairman of the overview and scrutiny committee had agreed to waive the right to call in any cabinet decision about the bus station. Is this transparent democracy?

3. At a recent planning committee meeting, why did its chairman and a majority of members refuse both a members’ site meeting and a public site meeting to examine the implications of this application.

4. It is unprecedented for a senior planning manager to comment before a planning committee meeting that the outcome of the planning application will result in the “best of its kind in Britain”.

5. The planning application is only complete once the council has appropriated the Open Space (The Waterfront and part of The Paddock). The cabinet has decided that objections will be considered by the director of regeneration in consultation with a designated portfolio holder.

That same director presented the last planning application in August 2009 and has already stated on the council’s website that the planning committee’s latest decision is “very good news for the bus travellers of Medway”.

How has this apparent conflict of interests been managed?

Most people would only be to willing to accept £6 Million worth of central government largesse.

Only a public enquiry can resolve this issue – why is the council so fearful?

Medway's application for City Status - An imaginary response from HRH Queen Elizabeth II :

Dear Councillor


Thank you for your letter. Unfortunately we do not confer City Status on rivers – only on towns. May I enquire what happened to the last City Status you had (since 1211), I have been informed by my Lord Chancellor that you have “lost” it – the only case I can recall of someone losing a city in the whole of British history!

I am told that you have also turned our ancient Rochester Market into a car park, you have destroyed the historic wharves and piers along the river to build flats and have demolished an icon of our industrial heritage – the Aveling and Porter building to provide more car parking! Not satisfied with this, you are devastating The Paddock and Riverside Gardens to build a smaller bus station than currently exists, where travellers will be exposed to the elements and will be required to cross busy traffic lanes to wait for their bus. At this rate there will be very little remaining that one might call a city!

In view of the above matters I must reject your application for your river to be given City Status, it would be akin to renaming the City of London "Thames" or the City of Canterbury "Stour". You really must look after things more carefully in future or you may be accused of being "A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" (Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic). It appears that while the Dutch and Hitler could not destroy the Medway Towns there may now be a new enemy at the gate - "Regeneration"!

Yours in disbelief,

Elizabeth R

PS. I do hope the Castle and Cathedral are still in one piece!

The Votes Are In The Bag

The big councillor said to the little councillor “How can we keep our council tax low so that voters are so grateful that they keep voting us into power?” The little councillor said “That’s easy we just increase our parking charges and the periods for which people must pay”. The big councillor replied “But to really make money we need more car parks”. The little councillor’s eyes lit up “Let’s knock down the old Aveling and Porter building and turn it into a car park like we did with the 800 year old Rochester Market – people have forgotten that already!”

“Great idea” enthused the big councillor “And there must be so many other old buildings around that we can turn into car parks – what about THE CASTLE?” They refilled their glasses, toasted the idea, signed off their expenses claims and relaxed on the plush council sofa. “And now that we have managed to get rid of our City Status through our incometance we don’t need THE CATHEDRAL either!” Their faces beamed as their creative juices flowed. “And if we provide a really inadequate bus service people will HAVE to use their cars!” This was too easy, it was obvious to the two dignitaries that special skills, vision, respect for community and heritage were no longer required in modern local government. As if with one voice they said “We could call it REGENERATION nobody can argue with that! They shook hands, drank another toast and agreed that the votes were in the bag.

Chatham Dynamic Bus Station

The ultra-violet lights in the rattling plastic bus shelter of Chatham’s new Dynamic Bus Station flickered fitfully through the rain and wind and darkness. Passengers huddled in the partial shelter of the doorway to the concrete hulk of The Pentagon Shopping Centre. They peered wistfully towards the deserted wind-swept bus shelters for the longed-for illuminated sign of a bus.

A cry went up from the look-out through the mournful howl of the wind “it’s a bus! It’s a 155” he yelled and started running towards the lumbering vehicle through the storm. Those passengers bound for Borstal, and the outlying villages of Wouldham and Burham and eventually the thriving county town of Maidstone ran, trotted, walked, limped and hobbled into the lashing gale desperate to reach the bus stop. They negotiated their way over the once-landscaped mud and once-decorative concrete slabs through the remaining newly-planted, fatally-damaged young trees to reach their goal and get away.

Regeneration had taken its toll on the poor, once-proud town and now even resuscitation was pointless. The plastic bags, food containers and empty beer cans swooped, tumbled and clattered down Waterfront Way like the tumbleweed on Desolation Row. The old lady knew that this time she couldn’t run the gauntlet across the Paddock, this time was just one time too many. She pleaded with her friend to save herself and watched as her stooped body frantically shuffled through the debris to catch the last bus out of town.