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iFAQ: Housing infrastructure fun

Medway was recently awarded a £170m grant from the Housing Infrastructure Fund to unlock future housing developments on the Hoo peninsula. While homes are desperately needed in Medway, these developments are very unpopular around the peninsula due to a perception of over-development. As such we decided to ask if this was the best use of the funding, or could it have been better spent in other parts of Medway.

It was recently announced that Medway has been awarded £170m from the Housing Infrastructure Fund to unlock future developments on the Hoo peninsula. Do you feel that this is the best use of this money, or do you feel that other parts of Medway could have benefited from access to these funds? If so, how?

As usual, we told all of them that we would publish their responses unedited. You can find them below in the order they were received.

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iFAQ: What benefits does a City of Culture bring anyway?

Don’t let it ever be said that Medway doesn’t like to try and punch above it’s weight. Despite not being a city and having hardly any culture, councillors of all colours have thrown their weight behind a campaign for Medway to become the UK City of Culture in 2025. There seems to be a lot of mixed messages about what this actually means, so we decided to ask every councillor the following question:

If Medway wins it’s 2025 City of Culture bid, what benefits would this bring to residents of your ward and the wider area?

As usual, we told all of them that we would publish their responses unedited. You can find them below in the order they were received.

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iFAQ: Language in the chamber

For our iFAQ this week, we decided to ask councillors about the use of language at Medway Council chambers, following discussions about what is appropriate in our national politics. As such, we sent the following question to every Medway councillor:

Given recent debates in Parliament about the use of language in politics, do you feel that language at Medway Council meetings is always appropriate, or would an element of moderation improve our political discourse?

As usual, we told all of them that we would publish their responses unedited. You can find them below in the order they were received.

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iFAQ: Debates for the many

On April 18, we held our Medway Leaders’ Debate, where we invited the two potential future leaders of Medway Council – Cllr Jarrett of Medway Conservatives and Cllr Vince Maple of Medway Labour – to answer questions about the future of Medway. If you weren’t one of the people lucky enough to be in the audience, you can watch the full event back in full here.

Following the debate, we invited representatives of the smaller parties, who did not meet the eligibility criteria for the debate itself, to answer some of the questions asked on the night. Below are their answers, presented entirely unedited.

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iFAQ: Brexit and the local elections

With local elections rapidly approaching, but the country still discussing little other than Brexit, we decided to ask all councillors standing for re-election what impact Brexit was likely to have on the elections and their campaigns.

As usual, we told all of them that we would publish their responses unedited. You can find them below in the order they were received.

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iFAQ: Let’s be frank(lin)

Following on from Medway Conservatives taking three years to suspend Cllr Franklin over his offensive tweeting, we decided to keep the iFAQ relevant this week, by asking this question to all councillors:

What acceptable reasons are there for a political party taking three years to take any action against a councillor engaging in hate speech online after it is highlighted in a full council meeting?

As usual, we told all councillors that their answers would be published entirely unedited. They are presented below in the order they were received.

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iFAQs: Brexit omnishambles

One of our popular features on The Political Medway is inFrequently Answered Questions, where we’d send off questions to relevant political figures and hope that we might occasionally get a reply. This week, we kept things nice and simple by sending the following two questions to every Medway councillor:

Q1. What is your preferred option for Brexit? May’s deal, no deal, or no Brexit?
Q2. What do you think of Medway Council’s Cabinet decision not to prepare for Brexit?

 

 

We told every councillor that they had a week to respond, and that we would publish their responses entirely unedited. All responses are published below, in the order that they were received by us.

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inFrequently Answered Surveys: I’m Still Standing

One of our popular features on The Political Medway is inFrequently Answered Questions, where we send questions to relevant political figures and hope that we might occasionally get a reply.

It’s time to do our first (Keevil) / last (Jennings) survey!

Following developments last week with Cllr Pendergast leaving Medway UKIP, Cllr Howard leaving Medway Tories and further afield in Dover, Cllr Eddy, the former leader of the Labour Opposition leaving the Labour Group to join the Greens, we (just Keevil) decided to ask the other 53 councillors to select one statement that best represented them for #LocalElection2019:
– I will be standing in the same ward with the same party.
– I will be standing in the same ward with a different party.
– I will be standing in a different ward with the same party.
– I will be standing in a different ward with a different party.
– I will be standing as an Independent.
– I will be standing as a member of The ‘Medway’s Voice Party’.
– I have decided to stand down.
– I have been deselected.
– I do not know if I will be standing or be deselected.
– I did not know there was a Local Election in 2019. Continue reading “inFrequently Answered Surveys: I’m Still Standing”

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iFAQs: Min Attendance / Max Council

One of our popular features that we used to have on The Political Medway was inFrequently Answered Questions, where we’d send off questions to relevant political figures and hope that we might occasionally get a reply. As we get going on this project again, we’ve decided to start asking some questions of our esteemed councillors once again.

To get us going, we started with an easy one, and sent all 55 Medway councillors the following question:

What should be the minimum attendance percentage of full council meetings for a councillor to retain their position?

We told every councillor that they had a week to respond, and that we would publish their responses entirely unedited. All responses are published below, in the order that they were received by us.

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Election night in Medway

For the fourth time in a little over two years, Medway has again gone to the polls, this time for a surprise General Election.

Polling stations will close at 10pm, and after that we’ll be live tweeting from the count on @MedwayPolitics. We’ll post the results on this post as quickly as we can, but it’ll probably be very late before the Medway results come in, so we won’t hold it against you if you check back in the morning.

Chatham and Aylesford result – Con HOLD
Nicole Bushill (UKIP) – 2,225
Tracey Crouch (Con) – 25,587
John Gibson (CPA) – 260
Bernard Hyde (Green) – 573
Vince Maple (Lab) – 15,129
Thomas Quinton (Lib Dem) – 1,116

Gillingham and Rainham result – Con HOLD
Paul Chaplin (Lib Dem) – 1,372
Rehman Chishti (Con) – 27,091
Martin Cook (UKIP) – 2,097
Clive Gregory (Green) – 520
Roger Peacock (CPA) – 127
Andy Stamp (Lab) – 17,661

Rochester and Strood result – Con HOLD
David Allen (UKIP) – 2,893
Steve Benson (CPA) – 169
Primerose Chiguri (Ind) – 129
Sonia Hyner (Green) – 781
Teresa Murray (Lab) – 19,382
Bart Ricketts (Lib Dem) – 1189
Kelly Tolhurst (Con) – 29,232