Medway Council is poised to reopen a public car park that was blocked off by a developer, a senior councillor has said. Union Place car park, behind Chatham High Street, remains closed after developer Donard Living erected fencing at its entrance two weeks ago. It left motorists with no access to the 49-space car park, which is only accessible through the site of the former Buzz Bingo owned by the developer. The fencing was coincidentally installed just days after Future Chatham revealed that Medway Council made a U-turn to no longer sell the car park for development. The car park was included in Donard Living's 231-home plans for the Buzz Bingo site, which were submitted earlier this month. The developer planned to buy the car park and it had therefore included it as part of the proposals. It is understood that access to the car park was set to remain open until at least the latter half of this year, which is when Donard Living hoped that development will begin. Although the car park remains shut for the foreseeable future, Medway Council is now looking into options to reopen it by creating a new entrance. Cllr Adrian Gulvin (Con), Medway Council's portfolio holder for resources, said the council has never had a legal right of access to Union Place car park and relied on permission from the adjacent land owners. He said: "It’s the Council’s intention to make a new entrance for the car park from New Road, & estimates for this have already been sought. "The car park serves many local businesses, so we are keen to get it opened again as soon as is possible." A surveyor was seen carrying out work with a laser level at the car park last week. A Medway Council spokesperson said: “We are liaising with the developer to see if access to the car park can be maintained. "We will also be looking into the possibility of creating new access to the car park from New Road.” The council continues to have no plans to sell the car park, the spokesperson added. Meanwhile, a spokesperson Donard Living said: “Now the outline planning application for the redevelopment of the former Buzz Bingo in Chatham is live, we are required by our insurers for both security and health and safety reasons to secure the site. "This will enable our contractors to undertake the necessary technical surveys and monitoring required for development and planning process." “The Council’s property team were notified 14 months ago of our intention to close access to the Buzz Bingo car park by email on 8 November 2021. “The hoardings will make the site safe and secure, which is of particular importance given recent incidents of antisocial behaviour in the area. “In relation to the situation of the sale of the car park, Donard’s management has not received a formal notification from the Council’s property team of its decision to no longer sell the car park and so we are unable to comment at this time.” Donard Living bought the former Buzz Bingo for an undisclosed sum in December 2021 with its finance partner Zetland Capital.
Last year, Medway Council considered options such as negotiating with Donard Living to maintain long-term access to its car park or to sell it to them, according to a Freedom of Information request by Future Chatham. Councillors were set to green light the closure of the car park at a Cabinet meeting last October, allowing it to be sold for development. However, the decision was deferred until a future meeting before the council confirmed that it no longer intended to sell the car park this month. Chatham's empty Debenhams has been put up for sale as part of plans to bring it back into use. The High Street department store, which closed in 2020, is being marketed for uses such as leisure, community, cultural and education, with housing earmarked on the upper floors. The listing also says that the ground floor of the 130,000 sq ft building could be subdivided to create units of various sizes starting from 5,000 sq ft. Estate agents Lambert Smith Hampton and Sibley Pares are marketing the building for Medway Council after it bought it for just over £2.2m last year using a grant from the government’s Future High Streets Fund. The department store was previously marketed in April 2016 when it was available for £17.8m, although that was for the building's freehold. A report from Medway Council's regeneration overview and scrutiny meeting in December last year revealed that the building was offered to the council at the time, but it decided not to buy it. The new listing is for the leasehold of the building, with offers being accepted for new leases, long leasehold sales and temporary meanwhile uses. The council says that it's marketing the building as a whole with options for smaller leases. Any proposed use of the ground floor will need to "provide an active frontage and increase footfall and vibrancy" to the High Street. Organisations are being given the opportunity to submit their proposals as part of the recent listing, but the council is still considering to redevelop the building themselves.
The redevelopment could cost up to £17.8m, which would be funded from short-term borrowing and repaid through the sale of the homes on the upper floors. Chatham's Debenhams building was built in November 1979 as an Allders department store. It was the biggest Allders store in non-metropolitan Kent, employing over 400 staff and costing £4m to build. Allders later went into administration in 2005, with Debenhams taking it over in April of that year. The Debenhams store had menswear, womenswear, childrenswear and a home furnishing department, as well as an in-store restaurant. The closure of the Chatham branch was announced in April 2019 when the retailer marked it out as one of 21 locations to be axed nationwide as part of cost-cutting measures. Medway Council was unsuccessful in a bid for £40m to regenerate parts of Medway, it has been revealed. The local authority put its hat in the ring for the second round of the government's Levelling Up fund to deliver two projects totalling £40m. One of the bids included £20m for a series of new walking and cycling routes in Gillingham, while the other £20m bid was set towards two buildings at its emerging business park, Innovation Park Medway (IPM), at Rochester Airport. The Levelling Up fund is a funding stream from central government, which is designed to invest money into new infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK. However, Medway Council lost out on its bid after the government announced that 111 areas across the UK have been awarded a share of £2.1bn. Successful bids include rail improvements in Cornwall, a new carbon-neutral education campus in Blackpool and a new ferry for Fair Isle in the Shetland Islands. Medway's bid for Gillingham involved the creation of a new 1.4km pedestrian and cycle route between Peel L&P's Chatham Waters development and Gillingham town centre, using a disused railway line. The funding was also set to be used to improve Gillingham High Street by revamping public spaces and repurposing empty buildings for commercial and community use. Meanwhile, the bid for Innovation Park Medway was planned to fund two net-zero buildings at the emerging business park, offering commercial and traditional office space for growing businesses. Innovation Park Medway is set to provide over 60,000 sqm of business space across two sites at Rochester Airport, with a particular focus on technology, precision engineering and manufacturing firms. While the government's latest announcement comes as a disappointment for Medway Council, it was good news for five councils elsewhere in Kent. Canterbury City Council was awarded nearly £20m to reopen Canterbury Castle, improve historic sites across the city centre and to revamp a number of walking and cycling routes. Meanwhile, Dover District Council won £18m to deliver a new creative and digital industry campus, and Kent County Council secured £45m to increase the number of border control points and exit routes at the Port of Dover. Successful Kent councils also include Swale Borough Council and Folkestone and Hythe District Council, who will invest £20m to regenerate Sheerness town centre and £19.7m for a revamp of Folkestone town centre respectively. In response to the announcement, leader of Medway Council, Cllr Alan Jarrett (Con), said: "Although we are disappointed that we have not secured Round 2 Levelling Up funding, we will continue to explore future funding opportunities for the exciting Open Lines Gillingham project and for two net zero carbon buildings as part of Innovation Park Medway.
“We previously received £14.4million from Round 1 of the government’s Levelling Up Fund for three projects - The Docking Station, The Brook Theatre and The Fitted Rigging House – so we were mindful that securing funding from Round 2 would be more challenging. "Thank you to everyone in the community who supported our bids. We will continue working with our partners to explore opportunities to further Medway’s ambitions, as well as support the establishment of Chatham as Medway’s city centre and its position as a creative hub.” In the first round of funding, Medway Council secured £14.4m for projects in Chatham, including The Brook Theatre, and the Docking Station and Fitted Rigging House, both at Chatham Historic Dockyard. A second round of funding was announced in March last year, focusing on transport, regeneration and town centres. The government received 525 bids by the deadline last summer, meaning just over a fifth were successful. The north west of England received the largest share of the latest round of the fund, at 17%, followed by the south east at 10%, according to the Local Government Chronicle. A future round of the Levelling Up fund has been confirmed to take place, although it's not yet known when this will open to bids. The redevelopment of former bedsits in Chatham into accommodation for vulnerable young adults is underway. Russell House, located near Magpie Hall Road, is set to become a 'foyer' housing people aged 16 to 25 who have to live on their own for the first time. Builders have been seen setting up fencing to prepare the site for construction work. The building, which opened in 1972, has sat empty since 2019 after landlord mhs homes stopped using it as a sheltered living scheme, containing 29 flats for people aged 55 and over. A design period of around 19 weeks is currently underway, with the demolition of derelict garages on the site set to take place after this. Work will also involve building two new studio-flat bungalows, landscaping and the refurbishment of Russell House itself. Community spaces including an accredited learning centre and offices for local organisations were also initially part of the plans. The accommodation will be run by mhs homes and will cater for 30 vulnerable, young people who cannot live at their family home for a variety of reasons or are not yet ready to live independently.
Residents of the new foyer will be mostly living independently, although minor assistance and a 24-hour warden will be provided. The plans faced heavy criticism from residents, councillors and the emergency services in 2021 when mhs homes put forward a planning application for the project, which has since been approved. Work is due for completion in July 2024, a year after the initial summer 2023 deadline. |
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