The planning system suffers from a democratic deficit. For years, communities have felt that development is done ‘to them’ rather than ‘with them’. This illustrated the need for a better approach to development.

With the closure of Go Outdoors, our community pursued a unique opportunity to imagine the future of a key site in Chatham town centre.

Between 2021 and 2023, we partnered with social enterprise Create Streets to produce a community-led vision for the site, encompassing the former Go Outdoors superstore, market hall and multi-storey car park.

In parallel to our vision, positive discussions were held with a potential new owner of the site. This was an opportunity for us to turn our emerging vision into a reality.

However, the buyer aborted the purchase of the site and, in January 2023, Arpenteur Nightingale Ltd acquired a 999-year lease instead.

Despite our proactive engagement, there was an absence of meaningful dialogue and collaboration offered by Arpenteur Nightingale. While we initiated a meeting with a representative in February 2023, since then we had not received any direct updates or invitations to collaboration.

In March 2024, we submitted our response to Arpenteur Nightingale’s consultation on its 355-home plans. Our response can be found below.