Agenda and minutes

During this period, it was informally agreed between the two political groups, due the Coronavirus pandemic, to run Medway Council meetings with a reduced number of participants. This was to reduce risk, comply with Government guidance and enable more efficient meetings. Therefore, the apologies given reflects that informal agreement of reduced participants.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Adeoye, Ahmed, Barrett, Bhutia, Bowler, Browne, Carr, Mrs Diane Chambers, Clarke, Cooper, Fearn, Griffin, Hackwell, Steve Iles, Khan, Mahil, Opara, Paterson, Prenter, Price, Purdy, Andy Stamp, Thompson, Thorne, Tranter, Mrs Elizabeth Turpin and Williams.

Members are invited to disclose any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests or Other Significant Interests in accordance with the Member Code of Conduct.  Guidance on this is set out in agenda item 2.

Disclosable pecuniary interests

There were none.

Other significant interests (OSIs)

There were none.

Other interests

There were none.

To approve the record of the meeting held on 8 October 2020.

Discussion:

A Member highlighted that 342 people in Medway had died within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test and that around 10,000 people had tested positive for the virus. He said that Medway currently had the highest rate of Covid-19 cases per 100,000 of population in the country.

In this context, on 26 November 2020, the Member had written to the Leader of the Council to request that a report on Covid-19 be added to the meeting agenda for the current Special Meeting of the Full Council. The Member had received advice from officers that there were mechanisms through which such an item could be added but that the request had not been agreed by the Council leadership. The Chief Legal Officer confirmed that he considered the advice provided by officers to have been correct.

Decision:

The record of the meeting held on 8 October 2020 was agreed by the Council and signed by The Worshipful the Mayor of Medway as correct.

(Councillor Howcroft-Scott requested her vote in favour of approval be recorded in accordance with Council Rule 12.6.)

The Worshipful The Mayor of Medway, on behalf of Members, placed on record the Council’s condolences to the family of Bill Davis, who had died in November 2020. He had initially served as a Councillor in Chatham, from the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s. He then served on Rochester upon Medway City Council between 1991 and 1998 and on Medway Council from its shadow year in 1997 until 2007, representing Wayfield and then Luton & Wayfield Ward. Former Councillor Davis had served on a significant number of Committees over the years including being a key Member of the Planning Committee.

A number of other Councillors addressed the meeting in tribute to former Councillor Davis. It was considered that he had served with passion and determination. It was noted that he had also served on the Kent Fire and Rescue authority, as a trustee of Chatham charities and had worked on housing and regeneration matters particularly keenly, including initial Rochester Riverside development proposals in the 1990s. Former Councillor Davis had a passion for social justice as well as for many sports, particularly football, golf and cricket.

The Mayor informed the Council of the passing of David Coomber, who had served for 47 continuous years for the Parish of Frindsbury Extra. Over decades he had chaired the Parish Council and was Vice-Chairman of the Rural Liaison Committee of both Medway Council and of the predecessor councils for a similar lengthy period. The Mayor said that former Councillor Coomber had been a dedicated, diligent individual who had served the community well and would be sadly missed.

The Mayor paid tribute, on behalf of all Members and officers of the Council and the people of Medway to nurse Hannah Jackson, who had died on 22 November 2020. Condolences were extended to Ms Jackson’s family, friends and work colleagues. She had achieved her ambition of coming to the UK from her native Dominica to work in the NHS. As a tribute, the flag of Dominica would be beside the Mayor throughout the meeting.

In relation to the comments made by a Member during agenda item number 3 (Record of Meeting), the Leader of the Council said that Medway did not currently have the highest rate of Covid-19 in the country although he acknowledged that the Medway rate was close to being the highest. The Leader said that he considered the people of Medway to be as well informed about Covid-19 as elsewhere in the country and said it was unfortunate that there had been, what he considered to be, an attempt to take political advantage of the situation.

This report asks Council to adopt the Innovation Park Medway Local Development Order, following initial consideration by the Cabinet on 15 December 2020. The Innovation Park Medway Local Development Order builds upon the masterplan to set principles for development to bring forward high quality development in the high-value technology, engineering, manufacturing and knowledge-intensive sectors.

Amendments have been made to the documentation following public consultation and the final documents are now being presented to Full Council for adoption.

Discussion:

This report provided details of the Innovation Park Medway Local Development Order (LDO) and recommended that the LDO be adopted, as recommended by the Cabinet on 15 December 2020.

The report explained that the LDO built upon the Innovation Park Medway Masterplan to set principles for development to bring forward high quality development in the high-value technology, engineering, manufacturing and knowledge-intensive sectors. The Cabinet had agreed to adopt the Masterplan at its meeting on 15 December 2020 (Cabinet decision 157/2020) refers.

The report described that an initial consultation on the LDO was undertaken from 7 June to 19 July 2019. Comments received were set out in the Consultation Statement, at Appendix D to the report. A number of further actions were required to address concerns regarding the transport assessment for Highways England, prior to the adoption of the LDO. In addition, Natural England also required several actions to address the impacts on the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and the North Downs Special Area of Conservation (SAC). These related to landscape and visual impact on the AONB, noise and tranquillity impact on the AONB, and air quality impacts on the North Downs SAC.

Additional modelling was undertaken in consultation with Highways England and KCC Highways, to identify the traffic impacts from Innovation Park Medway, with consideration of the potential wider impacts from the Strategic Transport Assessment. Mitigation design and further modelling was then undertaken for the key local and strategic junctions to demonstrate how the impacts of the development could be mitigated satisfactorily.

Further work was also undertaken to address the concerns raised by Natural England and an addendum to the Environmental Statement was produced, including an additional chapter of the Design Code to reflect Natural England’s concerns regarding landscape and visual impact on the AONB.

The report stated that a second public consultation was then undertaken by Medway Council on the new information from 26 October to 27 November 2020. Additional comments were gathered from statutory and public consultees, which were set out at Appendix E to the report. Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council had conducted a separate consultation in parallel with a difference of three days to the start and end dates.

The report noted that the response from Natural England had been positive, recognising the additional work done to satisfy their concerns. Their comments provided a steer to some minor tweaks to the design code, which had been undertaken. The Kent Downs AONB Unit response was less positive. However, it did acknowledge the work done to date to further mitigate the impacts on the AONB, with input from both Natural England and the AONB unit.

The report also noted that officers had worked very closely with Highways England to reach agreement on the way forward. Further changes were made to the LDO to clarify the delivery of necessary mitigation measures at the right time and in the right place to be informed by a Monitor and Manage Mitigation Strategy. KCC Highways had also  ...  view the full minutes text for item 569.