Medway Council Local Plan
What is the Local Plan?
Medway Council's Local Plan 2041 will determine how land across the Medway Council area is used and developed up to 2041.
It will guide decisions about where new housing, employment, infrastructure and services should be provided, as well as which areas of countryside, wildlife habitat and heritage should be protected.
Once adopted, it will become one of the principal documents used to determine planning applications across the Medway Council area, including post Local Government Reorganisation (LGR).
Save The Hoo Peninsula supports the preparation of an up-to-date Local Plan. What we oppose is the disproportionate amount and concentration of development proposed for the Hoo Peninsula and the harm we believe this could cause.
What is being proposed?
Medway Council's submitted Local Plan seeks to provide for 24,540 new houses across the Medway Council area by 2041.
Around 30% of the Plan's housing growth is directed towards rural areas, principally the larger villages of the Hoo Peninsula.
The largest concentration of rural development is around Chattenden, Hoo and High Halstow, where approximately 6,000 new houses are proposed.
For consistency, Save The Hoo Peninsula describes this as:
AROUND 6,000 NEW HOUSES
Chattenden, Hoo & High Halstow
The submitted Plan provides approximately:
- 4,700 houses around Hoo
- 600 houses around Chattenden
- 800 houses around High Halstow
The exact figures within individual allocations may change during the Local Plan examination, which is why STHP uses the rounded figure of around 6,000 houses when describing the overall scale of development.
This would represent a fundamental expansion of the existing villages and surrounding built-up area.
Development west of Strood
The Medway Council Local Plan also proposes major development on land west of Strood.
Medway Council proposes around 1,300 houses on its side of the local authority boundary as part of a much larger cross-boundary development with Gravesham Borough Council.
Together with approximately 1,900 houses proposed by Gravesham Borough Council, the two authorities are planning for around:
AROUND 3,200 NEW HOUSES WEST OF STROOD
The wider strategic site has longer-term capacity for up to 4,000 houses.
This area is currently Green Belt land. The Local Plan proposes changing the Green Belt boundary to enable the development to take place.
The Green Belt between Strood and Gravesend has historically helped maintain open countryside between the two urban areas and prevent their outward expansion towards one another.
STHP is deeply concerned about the loss of this countryside and the precedent created by large-scale development within this important strategic gap.
The sheer scale of development
Approximately 6,000 additional houses around Chattenden, Hoo and High Halstow would represent an enormous change to existing communities.
Medway Council's strategy proposes around 4,700 houses at Hoo alone, with further major expansion at Chattenden and High Halstow.
These are not small extensions designed simply to meet local housing needs.
They represent strategic development on a scale capable of changing the character, size and function of existing villages.
The Local Plan itself acknowledges the importance of retaining the distinct identity of the Hoo Peninsula's villages and avoiding their coalescence.
We question whether development on this scale can genuinely achieve that.
Roads and transport
Transport is one of STHP's greatest concerns.
The communities on the central and eastern Hoo Peninsula depend heavily upon a limited road network, with the A228 and Four Elms area forming the principal connection between much of the Hoo Peninsula and the Medway Towns.
Large numbers of residents already travel off the Hoo Peninsula for employment, shopping, healthcare and other services.
Public transport options are limited in many areas, contributing to high levels of car dependency.
Adding thousands of houses has the potential to generate substantial additional traffic not only within Hoo, Chattenden and High Halstow, but through Wainscott, Four Elms, Strood and the wider Medway road network.
STHP believes new development must not be permitted on the assumption that infrastructure improvements will somehow follow later.
The transport infrastructure necessary to support development must be identified, funded and capable of delivery.
Wildlife of national importance
The Hoo Peninsula is one of the most environmentally sensitive parts of the Medway Council area.
Around its northern and southern edges lie the internationally protected Thames Estuary and Marshes and Medway Estuary and Marshes, recognised for their importance to breeding, wintering and migratory birds.
Closer to Chattenden lies Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
Lodge Hill is nationally important for its breeding Nightingales and contains important woodland and grassland habitats.
Medway Council's own Sustainability Appraisal recognises that the Nightingale population at Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill is nationally important and requires particular attention and caution during the plan-making process.
Development can affect wildlife even where houses are not built directly on a protected site.
Potential impacts include:
- loss and fragmentation of surrounding habitat;
- increased recreational disturbance;
- increased numbers of domestic cats;
- additional traffic, noise and lighting;
- deterioration in air and water quality;
- increased pressure on nearby nature reserves;
- loss of feeding and breeding habitat outside protected boundaries; and
- disruption of ecological corridors connecting important sites.
Of particular concern is functionally linked land - land outside a formally protected wildlife site which nevertheless performs an important role for species associated with that site.
Wildlife does not recognise the boundary of an SSSI, nature reserve or Local Plan allocation.
Protecting designated sites therefore also means protecting the wider landscape and ecological network upon which their wildlife depends.
The Nightingale
The Nightingale has become an important symbol of what is at stake.
Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill SSSI supports one of the country's most important breeding populations of Nightingales.
The species has suffered a dramatic national decline.
Development close to Nightingale habitat raises particular concerns about disturbance, habitat fragmentation and urbanisation effects, including predation by domestic cats.
Conservation organisations, including the RSPB, have previously raised serious concerns about residential development close to the Lodge Hill SSSI and have argued for a precautionary approach to development around the site.
STHP believes Britain's most important remaining Nightingale populations should not be placed at unnecessary risk when less environmentally damaging development options exist.
Productive agricultural land
The fields surrounding the Hoo Peninsula's villages are not simply vacant land awaiting development.
Much of the central Hoo Peninsula contains high-quality agricultural land, including significant areas classified as Grade 1 and Grade 2.
These are among the highest grades within the national Agricultural Land Classification system.
Medway Council's own Local Plan acknowledges that Medway has a particularly high proportion of the country's Best and Most Versatile agricultural land, including Grade 1 land.
The Hoo Peninsula has supported farming for centuries and continues to produce food today.
Agricultural land also contributes to:
- local food production;
- wildlife habitat;
- carbon storage and healthy soils;
- water management;
- the setting of villages;
- the rural economy; and
- the distinctive landscape of the Hoo Peninsula.
Once productive farmland has been permanently covered by housing, roads and other development, it cannot realistically be returned to its former agricultural condition.
STHP believes the permanent loss of high-quality agricultural land should carry substantial weight when alternative locations for development are considered.
Countryside and village character
The Hoo Peninsula has a distinctive landscape.
Its character comes from its open farmland, marshes, wooded ridges, historic villages, waterways and enormous skies.
There is still clear countryside between settlements, allowing places such as Chattenden, Hoo and High Halstow to retain their own identities.
Development on the proposed scale risks gradually replacing this network of individual rural communities with an increasingly continuous built environment.
Medway Council's own strategy says that the distinct identity of the villages should be retained and that coalescence should be avoided.
STHP believes the test must be whether the actual allocations achieve those objectives - not simply whether the Plan says that they will.
Schools, healthcare and community services
Thousands of additional houses mean thousands of additional residents.
That creates additional demand for:
- GP and healthcare services;
- primary and secondary school places;
- childcare;
- public transport;
- social care;
- utilities;
- emergency services;
- leisure and sports facilities;
- shops and community facilities; and
- parks and public open spaces.
Medway Council acknowledges that major growth on the Hoo Peninsula requires substantial new infrastructure and services.
The submitted Local Plan proposes new schools, centres, healthcare and community provision as part of the expansion of Hoo and Chattenden.
But identifying infrastructure in a planning document is not the same as guaranteeing that it will be fully funded, delivered at the right time and capable of meeting demand.
STHP believes existing residents must not be expected to endure years of additional pressure while essential infrastructure catches up with development.
Flooding, drainage and water
Much of the Hoo Peninsula is a low-lying estuarine landscape.
Flood risk, surface-water drainage, sewerage capacity and the effects of climate change therefore require careful consideration.
Large developments change how water moves across land. Roads, roofs and other hard surfaces can increase surface-water runoff unless properly managed.
Thousands of additional houses will also create significant additional demand on water supply and wastewater infrastructure.
These issues must be resolved through robust evidence and deliverable infrastructure - not left to individual planning applications after strategic development locations have already been approved.
Heritage and historic landscape
The Hoo Peninsula contains an unusually rich concentration of historic landscapes, buildings, archaeological remains and military heritage.
The development areas around Hoo and Chattenden sit within a landscape shaped by centuries of farming, settlement, defence and industry.
The wider area includes historic churches and farmsteads, archaeological sites, former military land and surviving elements of the Hoo Peninsula's extensive defensive history.
The setting of those assets matters.
A historic building, archaeological site or monument cannot always be considered separately from the countryside and landscape that explain why it is there.
STHP believes that development should respond to the historic landscape rather than gradually erasing it.
The cumulative impact
Individual development sites are often assessed separately.
But residents experience their effects together.
Thousands of houses at Chattenden, Hoo and High Halstow would interact with other housing, employment and infrastructure developments across the Hoo Peninsula and surrounding area.
That means additional:
traffic + population + recreation + pressure on services + habitat disturbance + land loss + infrastructure demand.
STHP believes the Local Plan must properly address this cumulative impact.
The question is not simply whether each individual site can be made acceptable in isolation.
The question is whether the Hoo Peninsula as a whole can sustainably accommodate the combined scale of development being proposed.
Where is the Local Plan now?
Medway Council submitted the Local Plan to the Secretary of State for independent examination on 18 December 2025.
Two independent Planning Inspectors have been appointed to examine whether the Plan has been prepared correctly and whether it is sound.
The examination is not simply a formality.
The Inspectors can question the Council's evidence, examine individual policies and allocations and require changes where necessary.
Formal hearing sessions are scheduled to begin on:
15 SEPTEMBER 2026
The examination is therefore a critical opportunity to scrutinise the strategy being proposed for the Hoo Peninsula.
Save The Hoo Peninsula is taking action
STHP has made detailed representations concerning the Local Plan and has obtained specialist professional advice about its potential effects.
We have instructed Richard Buxton Solicitors, specialists in environmental and planning law, together with specialist ecological expertise.
In March 2026, Richard Buxton Solicitors wrote to the appointed Planning Inspectors on behalf of Save The Hoo Peninsula raising concerns about the Local Plan and its supporting evidence.
Medway Council's own examination website records that the Inspectors considered the points raised and indicated that a response from the Council would be sought alongside other matters they wished to examine.
We will continue to scrutinise the evidence, participate in the examination process where appropriate and challenge proposals that we believe would cause unacceptable harm to the Hoo Peninsula.
We are prepared to use professional ecological, planning and legal expertise where necessary to protect the Hoo Peninsula.