Our Community
The Hoo Peninsula is home to a network of established villages and communities, each with its own identity, history and character.
Some are larger settlements, such as Hoo, Higham and Cliffe. Others, including Cooling, St Mary Hoo and Stoke, remain much smaller. What they share is a strong relationship with the countryside, marshes and waterways around them.
The open land between settlements matters. It helps prevent individual villages from merging into one continuous built-up area and allows communities to retain their own sense of place. Medway Council's own landscape evidence recognises the importance of landscape in separating settlements and strengthening their individual identities.
But protecting a community means more than protecting the space between houses.
It means protecting the things that allow communities to function: schools, healthcare, roads, public transport, utilities, shops, community halls, sports and leisure facilities, clubs, pubs and public open spaces.
Infrastructure is particularly important when development on a very large scale is proposed. Medway Council has itself acknowledged that some services on the Hoo Peninsula have limited spare capacity and that additional facilities would be required if development takes place.
At the western end of the Hoo Peninsula, Gravesham Borough Council's own proposed Local Plan says that Higham should remain a distinct settlement and that its local, independent and rural character should be retained and strengthened.