Case Study 3 – 20 The Ridgeway, Chatham

I had placed this series on hold again, owing to the River Ward by-election. As that is now over, here is the third episode in the series...

No. 20 The Ridgeway: The Issue

This former senior policeman's house had, in recent years, been used as a home for eight children with learning disabilities.

There were by this time only two children still there, and they were both destined to leave soon, leaving a vacant property.

Back in 2004, the agency responsible for the property (on behalf of the West Kent NHS and Social Care Trust as it was then called) applied for planning permission to change the place into a psychiatric hostel.

This was to be a complete rebuild of the place to a much larger size, with twice the frontage of the existing structure. It would be huge (described by residents as "a Travelodge"!), disproportionate, inappropriate, and would have significantly impacted at least one neighbouring property (No. 18) as a Planning Committee members' site visit (which I arranged for) showed clearly.

Now, it is axiomatic that one does not take a collection of mentally disturbed folk out of a specialised hospital-based unit and drop them into a residential setting; yet this was precisely what that NHS Trust intended. It was at first camouflaged as being intended "for handicapped children"; but there were obvious clues that this was never their true intention (no child-size WCs were included in their plans, for example) and in the end they were compelled to withdraw that misleading description.

In reality, there would be drug addicts and all sorts coming to the new place, away from their current round-the-clock access to qualified medical personnel at the present location of the specialised unit for these people.

The Evidence

The medical evidence, largely as provided by the head of the existing unit at Newhaven Lodge on the Medway Maritime Hospital campus, was clear-cut. The campaign group secured a copy of this evidence (and much more) via a couple of Freedom of Information requests.

The medical head of that unit concluded his report thus:

"My advice to the West Kent NHS Trust therefore, as Rehabilitation Consultant to the Medway/Swale services, is that the present Rehabilitation Unit, Newhaven Lodge on the Medway Maritime campus is far preferable to the proposed site in The Ridgeway or similar setting."

I have met and had a lengthy private conversation with that doctor on this whole business, also letting him know what we were doing.

The reasons given in the report (too lengthy to reproduce here) are quite conclusive and just about impossible to sensibly challenge. Yet that is what the bureaucrats running the NHS Trust were attempting to do. It was clear that their goals had nothing whatsoever to do with patient care, but were driven by a completely different agenda.

The Solution

The answer was first and foremost to set up a campaign group. The temptation was to mastermind everything myself, especially as the President of my Conservative Association lived in The Ridgeway and had a strong interest in the issue. What better way to ingratiate myself with senior people in the party?

However, in this case it was better to bring the various professionals and others living in the road together, and offer them the choice of taking ownership of the campaign. It was the nature of the residents, and to sow the seeds of a future where other matters would come before them, that I decided this ought to be offered to them. If they didn't wish to proceed in that manner then I'd have taken the lead throughout.

They did take it on, realising the advantages, so I became less obviously a key player. There are a few living in The Ridgeway who know more than that; but most will probably be unaware of much of what I did, and I was and am perfectly content with that.

The Ridgeway Action Group ("RAG") included an experienced builder, a former local councillor, a mental health nurse and others with individually impressive qualifications and backgrounds. Combined they became a powerful and influential force, difficult to counter – as the NHS Trust officials were to discover!

My two prime functions were to (a) advise the residents and their campaign group, RAG, on planning matters (e.g. Use Classes) and council procedures, and (b) to feed information to Medway Councillors, especially those sitting on the Planning Committee.

The full story of how the campaign was fought really is too long for here (but will appear in full in my memoirs one day!) and took a good two years to finally resolve. Yes, we won, the planning application was refused on 19 July 2006 (under Medway Council ref MC2006/0785) and the plans were shelved.

However it was only very recently that the Trust (in whatever form it exists today) finally gave up completely, and a For Sale sign was spotted outside the property. The best use for it, as I maintained since the proposal first came to light, was as ordinary residential, in common with the rest of the road. It really isn't suited to anything else; and it would in fact be possible to build two or three normal-sized properties on the site.

At last it looks as though that is the kind of outcome that will befall No. 20 The Ridgeway, and rightly so!

Altogether, my computer folder for 20 The Ridgeway contains 360 files counting up to a little over 90 Megabytes in size, giving an idea of just how big this matter actually was.