National pub chain, JD Wetherspoon, have started work to refurbish the former empty The Old Post Office building in Chatham town centre.

The company is investing £2.2 million in refurbishing The Old Post Office and have chosen to name the venue after the nearby local figure, Thomas Waghorn. Refurbishment works on the building in Railway Street started on February 22 and The Thomas Waghorn is set to open on July 19, creating up to 50 jobs.

Plans as part of the work include a new roof terrace, refurbishing the inner courtyard, expanding the kitchen area, installing a new front entrance and relocating toilets to the upper floors, over 774 sq m. Potential outdoor seating will also complement with exciting plans as part of the £4 million Chatham Placemaking Project in the area.

JD Wetherspoon spokesman Eddie Gershon, said: “We are delighted development work has now started on our new pub for Chatham. We have been keen to open a pub in the town for a number of years and pleased this is now happening.

“We are confident the pub will be a great asset to Chatham and also hopefully act as a catalyst for other businesses to invest in the area.”

As reported in the Friday edition of the Medway Messenger this week, a major investor has purchased the Pentagon Shopping Centre in Chatham.

The 330,000 sq ft shopping centre at the heart of the town centre was aquired by UK community shopping centre specialist firm Ellandi on December 9, 2015. It was sold to the firm for £42 million, and was one of the first aquistions when they teamed up with major investment company Bridges Venture to develop a portfolio of shopping centres last year.

According to the information page on the Ellandi website about the Pentagon Shopping Centre, it is planned that the centre will be refurbished and given a 'major new look and feel to it'. The centre will be redeveloped to provide new major retail space units, a large superstore and new leisure facilities. The firm also say that there are potential opportunities for national and regional retailers to have stores within the scheme on 'either a short or long term basis'.

Ambitious plans were drawn up by architecture studio Haskoll back in 2008 for the previous shopping centre owners, however they informed us that no further progress had taken place since. The impressive drawings showed a contemporary new look for the centre, with the former bus station redeveloped for expanded retail space and new public spaces created.

Medway Council have recently launched a new scheme to provide residents and visitors with free WiFi access across Medway town centres. Access to the authority's main website and secondary websites are free and unlimited while logged into a WiFi hotspot to provide 24/7 access to council services.

As well as helping residents to access council services, this allows people to keep up-to-date with friends and family, work or study on the move and find out what’s on in Medway. Users will also be able to access other sites for 30 minutes per day for free, with the option of a £5 charge for 24 hours afterwards.

Chatham town centre is one of the multiple areas benefiting from the new scheme, with WiFi now accessible on the High Street, Railway Street, Military Road and the Chatham Waterfront Bus Station.

Registering for a free account is simple and takes just 2 minutes. Simply connect to the Medway Council WiFi access service when in a hotspot location and enter your first name, last name and email address to receive instant internet access.

Read all the latest news and updates regarding the wall collapse in Listmas Road. New information is added regularly to keep you up-to-date on what you need to know.

The garden wall of the Magpie Community Centre in Chatham dramatically collapsed on Listmas Road at approximately 9:20pm unexpectedly on January 7, 2016, with a huge amount of rubble and earth plunging onto the pavement and road below.

Emergency services were called at 9:40pm, with firefighters spending hours assessing the damage at the scene. The following morning staff at the premises, which is run by the All Saints Community Project Trust, were also assessing the damage. The wall was around 120ft long and 9ft in height, with two mini-buses and a car damaged in the incident. Thankfully there were no injuries or fatalaties in the unanticipated collapse.

Temporary works to make the immediate area safe commenced on February 1st and were completed on February 15. Contractors have cleared the rubble and shored up the remaining section of the wall, to prevent it from falling and making the area safe.

The Magpie Centre and Cafe remained closed to visitors since the incident in early January, but the facility re-opened on February 22. Listmas Road also remained closed to traffic, however it re-opened to motorists on February 15. The Arriva 164 bus has also returned to its usual route and therefore will not be travelling on its diversion route anymore.

For further updates and information on the incident, please keep up-to-date by visiting the All Saints Community Project Trust Facebook page and Twitter profile, as well as visiting their website at www.allsaintscommunityproject.org.uk.