Agenda item

This report outlines work on the new Medway Local Plan, reflecting on the consultation carried out in Summer 2024 and next steps. It highlights planning for health infrastructure as part of Medway’s growth, and aspects of the plan that promote the health and wellbeing of Medway’s communities.

Discussion:

The Board received a report on the new Medway Local Pan, including reflection following the consultation that took place in the summer of 2024.The Voluntary Sector and the Public Health Team were thanked for all their support and work during the consultation process. It was important to ensure that the Plan played a role in improvements to air quality, access to open spaces and contribute to securing a good health infrastructure for residents of Medway.

Members then raised the following comments and question:

The Local Plan was not just about housing targets but about the infrastructure targets and with growth in Medway’s population, ensuring that health and wellbeing played a firm role in the Local Plan.

The wider determinants of health were important, the third sector were stretched, needed facilities and infrastructure to deliver services for the communities they served. They had lost use of the community space where they supported charities and had nowhere to run and engage in activities. The third sector was not considered public sector which meant they did not receive certain funding and as a result were unable to deliver services without space or funding to run programmes.

Healthwatch undertook some work on the wider determinants of health, with information gathered and distributed on a monthly basis, reporting highlighted what people valued. This would be shared with officers working on the Local Plan.

The development of the Local Plan had been a priority for the Council in the last year and was on track to be finalised by 2026. There was anticipated growth in Medway of approximately 50 thousand more people by 2041 and it was vital to ensure the right infrastructure would be in place to manage the predicted growth.

There was a multifaceted approach to health infrastructure and all services were working collaboratively, with the interlinking of themes and strategies. The health service continued to ensure that resources were steered by all plans and fed back into the integrated care system. A pragmatic approach was being taken on change and tools had been developed in conjunction with the Integrated Care Board where proposals were run through the systems on the hospital to identify what may be needed financially to meet needs as well as what may be needed in terms of bed uplifts in order to meet future demands.

In response to a question on what the health plan would be for the projected growth, the Board was informed of the ICB’s strategic estates planning, in particular, feeding into the 10 year planning on how the budget increase would be utilised. The NHS capital position was likely to remain strained but there were different areas to explore as part of transformation of the health service, including changes to the estate to meet future needs. Utilisation of existing centres and other alternative sources of funding which could be used alongside the NHS funding to support what was needed in the future and embedding good foundations of partnership working.

It was further commented that the hospital was already a very good site, and work was being undertaken on how to repurpose parts of the site to meet future changing needs including the provision of some services in community based locations.It was envisaged that the hospital would be working in different way in 10 years and there was a need to prioritise and ensure that the infrastructure would be fit for purpose. There was ongoing exploration of the way people access the hospital which continued to evolve through increased use of virtual wards.

It was commented that due to the possible expected growth it would be prudent to look at the entire health provision with the view of development of a modernisation plan.

The quality of new build housing was variable, and quality of housing was an important aspect of health outcomes. It was also important to ensure that an expectation of a reasonable percentage of social housing would be built into the plan. The Board was informed that a meeting had taken place with developers where it was made clear the standards expected and considerations for building of life time housing and need for more social housing.

In relation to comments on the loss of agricultural land to development, the officer said that when consultation documents were published with sites identified on farmland, Medway had a difficult decision to make with regards to meeting the level of development that has been identified for Medway, on previously developed land without degrading the quality of the environment, amenity and the quality of places in Medway. This would call for a mix of Greenfield site release and Brownfield Land. Brownfield would come first in terms of the strategy and understanding what could be achieved on this land would inform what quantum of land would need to be found on Greenfield sites.

In response to comments on density and what that meant for Medway, the officer said that the drive for density had been a long standing national policy, with expectation to make the best use of land and help to safeguard green spaces. There were reviews undertaken on what was appropriate density, including the wider environment, what facilities were in an area to support good quality of life, i.e. good air quality, and joining objectives together to prevent overdevelopment whilst giving consideration to the quality of development.

Decisions:

a)    The Board noted the report.

b)    To ensure that the workshop being delivered by the Integrated Care Board on health and housing aligns with the aspirations of JLHWS.

c)     To Lobby government for more support for the voluntary sector who were stretched to capacity.