1. Loss of City Status
2. Closure of Rochester Market to provide income generating car parking
3. CCTV Car(s)
4. Destruction of Aveling and Porter building to provide income generating car parking
5. Destruction of riverside wharves to provide thusfar non-existant development
6. Vandalism (tree felling etc) of The Paddock for "Dynamic" Bus Station
7. Vandalism of Riverside Gardens (tree felling etc) for "Dynamic" Bus Station
8. Vandalism of Great Lines (tree felling, destruction of wildlife habitat)
9. Changes to Black Lion Sports Centre (including renaming as Medway Park!)
10. Closure of college to sell off land opposite Rochester Airport for development
11. Relocation of Age Concern/Help the Aged from central Chatham to Hopewell Drive Business Estate, Luton
12. Failure to ensure the refurbishment of Pentagon toilets
13. Selling off parts of Watts Meadow for development
14. Selling off Copperfield Green Space for development
15. Failing to provide public parking at Gun Wharf Council offices
16. Publishing and distributing "Medway Matters" (a blatant piece of propaganda) using our money
17. Failing to consult effectively and/or failing to listen to consultation on almost every issue
18. The "Elephant in The Room" preventing any regeneration of Chatham is THE PENTAGON - demolish it!
19. Merger of Chatham South School & Medway Community College to form the vast Chatham Academy (added by Tracy)
20. Proposed closure of St John's C of E Infants (thanks to Tracy for this addition)
21. Proposed closure of Ridge Meadow Primary school (thanks again Tracy)
22.Axing of jobs - loss of park wardens at Maidstone Rd Sports Ground
the only sports ground in Chatham Central! (from Tracy)
23. Loss of loos at Maidstone Rd Sports Ground - Council voted to demolish [ & have demolished them ] & will not be re-instating. The nearest & only public loo in Chatham is actually the coin operated [20p portaloo] which is located far away down in the Town Centre behind Debenhams.
Unfortunately it is not accessible for the disabled & has no baby changing facilities either,
but it is available 24hrs !! (from Tracy)
24. Queen St/Slicketts Hill car parks which are to be sold off & potentially developed into blocks of flats [ I think the Council refers to these blocks of flats as Podiums ] Wont they have a nice outlook ? - Iceland's car park / Tesco's / burst sofas in gardens, the graffiti behind them.'Rennaisance' loves the idea.... it'll all be so terribly modern ? And right alongside the 'new Brook Boulevard' .. HA!!
But with limited parking / access / all those lifts etc... just think how hard it is going to
be trying to even move your furniture in.. let alone living there ?
Can you imagine the cost of the service charges ?
And they're not likely to be cheap..... I wonder just who can afford / will be attracted to live there ? (from Tracy.
25, Failure years ago to back the campaigners to save the Theatre Royal in Chatham. (thank you Bash Street Kid)
25, Failure years ago to back the campaigners to save the Theatre Royal in Chatham. (thank you Bash Street Kid)
6 comments:
Future destruction of boat yards in Strood and other riparian facilities along the Medway (which is a river not a city) such as Sun pier.
Planning does not take into account what we already have.
Medway city status - Who voted for it? Was it debated by elected members? If so, where are the minutes?
Two attempts have been made in 2000 and 2004, both of which failed. Let's hope the 2012 attempt also fails. This is a classic example of local democracy.
Rochester has been a city in the county of Kent for eight hundred years or so, who do these people think they are? Is it some kind of power trip?
I think you have been totally unfair to Medway Council. Surely their biggest achievement was their failure years ago to back the campaigners for the Theatre Royal in Chatham. All research shows that if you want a night-time economy, you build a theatre. Delibrately allowing this opportunity to escape was far and away their greatest act of pusillanimous vandalism & I really think we should recognise this. No wonder Marks and Spencer moved out of Chatham High Street! They obviously had the measure of this council.
And, let's face it, if the theatre had been restored, there was a serious danger that the people who live here might have visited it and even enjoyed themselves! Good grief, you can't have that sort of thing, can you? No, be clear about this: the council is elected to ensure that the Medway Towns is as awful a place to live in as possible. And remember to vote for them again at the next election, okay?
What happened over city status is that the paperwork wasn't done at the time when the old city council handed over power to the unitary authority. And it wasn't done on purpose. If you ask, the present authority will blame the old one, but as they were mostly the same people, we may reasonably assume they were in cahoots. They knew how to do the paperwork; they just didn't do it, because they wanted the emphasis on Medway. As if anyone would pay any attention.
Now they are wasting council tax payers' money applying for the third time for city status, not for Rochester, but for Medway. Councillor Chambers says he can't think of any reasons against it. Can't he? Perhaps he should have a long, hard think about it
1) It's too expensive and in a time of cutbacks, this is ideal for cutting back on.
2) Something that is often forgotten is that Rochester has lost city status not once but twice. Last time, somewhere in the early 80s, HM agreed to restore it, as long as the council's name had 'Rochester' in it (that's why it was called for a time Rochester-upon-Medway city council). But she showed her disapproval of having lost it in the first place by sending not a single member of the Royal family to the ceremony, which the Lord Lieutenant of Kent was obliged to preside over instead. Having annoyed the Queen once, do you think she's going to listen again? Medway doesn't stand a chance.
3) Who the hell, outside this area, has ever bloody heard of Medway anyway? It doesn't really exist. Which motorway road signs is it on?
4) The council only called itself Medway because councillors were too small-minded to agree on either Rochester, Chatham or Gillingham as the name of the new authority. (You don't believe me? Ask an officer.) Any of those three wold have been better than Medway: Rochester is an internationally-known name; so is Chatham (eg Chatham House); and even Gillingham gets a plug on football scores.
5) Medway is a losers' name, a joke name, like Scunthorpe or Cleethorpes or Snodland. Get rid of it. Charlotte Bronte didn't call her hero Mr Medway, did she? And he wouldn't have had the same dignity if she had.
I will leave it to Medway Blogger to decide how many unpopular/incompetent decisions are covered by the above, but at least one, I think ...
What a jolly fine script Roger!
Post a Comment