00:0037 years old is the average age of someone able to buy a new home in Medway.
00:05Today Medway Council held a local planned briefing which looked at the ways Medway could be changing over the years.
00:12It included the potentials of new housing and services and it also discussed the use of the river being used for transport.
00:20The need for housing has led to discussions of controversial developments on land in the borough, including on the Chatham Dockyard.
00:27Which councillors and developers are looking at keeping its historic connection while making it an area of employment and housing.
00:34We've got a sort of housing need identified with the government of around about 25,000 homes.
00:40That's a huge amount of development and it cannot take place in one particular place, i.e. the Hoon Peninsula or Rainier.
00:46It has to be spread equally across the community.
00:49So we've gone for this particularly sort of split between as much of the community as we can to balance out how the development takes place.
00:56In addition to that, we really feel that regeneration of our brownfield land should take priority.
01:02So the split is 40% of our brownfield sites, so that's the whole of Medway, will take the priority of the redevelopment for housing.
01:09Then it's 30% on the rural fringe and then it's 30% in the rural area.
01:14With it set to be discussed this Thursday, the opposition will be set to question the plan.
01:18Look, we're really concerned about the local plan that the administration have announced, which will be coming to full council on Thursday.
01:25We've got lots of concerns, not only about the policy aspects of the plan, including critical parts of the plan as it relates to infrastructure.
01:33We're also concerned about a number of broken promises that the administration have made to the people of Medway,
01:38including on the Chatham Dock that they defended whilst in opposition and other rural parts of the authority
01:43that will see significant numbers of housing over the local plan period.
01:47But what do residents think about the idea of housing development on the Chatham Dockyards?
01:53Chatham Dockyards is a very historical site, so I think there is something about keeping it pure for residents to understand about the historical nature.
02:01But however, we know we are in a housing crisis and I think if we can just make sure that maybe not all of the space is used for residential
02:10and we still have the historical element, then that's fine. I think we've got to have a balance because there is a massive need.
02:15Well, there's already housing at Chatham Dockyard. It works very well.
02:19If you're going to keep it a thriving, bustling place, I think you should have people living there as well.
02:25The future of Medway will be discussed by the end of this week, but a decision is still far away.
