Objection to Go Outdoors development

Our neighbourhood forum has submitted detailed comments on the 319-home planning application for Chatham’s Go Outdoors site, put forward by Arpenteur Nightingale.

While we welcome the regeneration of this important site, the current proposals fail to comply with planning policy and falls short of meeting our community’s expectations.

Key concerns include:

• No affordable housing: It is unclear whether any affordable homes will be provided.
• Generic design: Little effort is made to celebrate Chatham’s distinct and valued period architecture.
• Tall buildings: Heights reaching up to 8 storeys exceed limits set by local policy and impact views to the Grade I-listed Naval War Memorial.
• Unjustified car-free development: This will be Medway’s largest car-free housing scheme, yet no evidence on the potential impact on local streets has been provided.
• Substandard amenity: For a development of this scale, residents will have limited access to well-lit, high quality outdoor amenity spaces.

After a decade of disappointment, Chatham deserves policy-compliant development. Over 700 people voted for our Neighbourhood Plan, expecting it to shape the future of our community. This is a chance to honour that democratic mandate, restore faith in the planning process, and uphold policies to safeguard tomorrow.

We call for a fundamental rethink of the scheme to ensure it meets policy requirements and meaningfully improves this corner of Chatham.

Read our full objection here.