Medway Council

Medway Council is the local authority of Medway, a local government district in the ceremonial county of Kent, England. The council is a unitary authority, being a district council which also performs the functions of a county council; it is independent from Kent County Council. The council was created on 1 April 1998 and replaced Rochester-upon-Medway City Council and Gillingham Borough Council.

The council has been under Labour majority control since 2023. It meets at the St George's Centre in the Chatham Maritime area of the borough and has its main offices at Gun Wharf in Chatham.

History
Throughout the 19th century there had been proposals to join the Medway towns under a single authority. By 1903 moves began to take place: that year saw the creation of the Borough of Gillingham, to which, in 1928, the adjoining parish of Rainham was added.

In 1944, a Medway Towns Joint Amalgamation Committee was formed by the borough corporations of Chatham, Gillingham and Rochester, to discuss the possibility of the towns forming a single county borough. In 1948 the Local Government Boundary Commission recommended that the area become a "most purposes" county borough, but the recommendation was not carried out. In 1956 the Joint Amalgamation Committee decided in favour of the amalgamation and invited representatives from Strood Rural District Council to join the committee. In 1960, a proposal was made by Rochester Council that the merger be effected by the city absorbing the two other towns, in order to safeguard its ancient charters and city status. This led to Gillingham Council voting to leave the committee, as it believed the three towns should go forward as equal partners. On 9 March, the committee held its last meeting, with the Chatham representatives voting to dissolve the body and those from Rochester voting against. The motion to disband was passed on the casting vote of the chairman, Alderman Semple from Chatham.

Under the Local Government Act 1972, on 1 April 1974 the City of Rochester, the Borough of Chatham and part of Strood Rural District were amalgamated to form the Borough of Medway, a local government district in the county of Kent. Gillingham chose to remain separate. Under letters patent the former city council area was to continue to be styled the "City of Rochester" to "perpetuate the ancient name" and to recall "the long history and proud heritage of the said city". The city was unique, as it had no council or charter trustees and no mayor or civic head. In 1979, the Borough of Medway was renamed as Rochester-upon-Medway, and in 1982 further letters patent transferred the city status to the entire borough.

On 1 April 1998, the existing local government districts of Rochester-upon-Medway and Gillingham were abolished under the local government review and merged to become the new unitary authority of Medway, administratively independent from Kent County Council. The Lieutenancies Act 1997 was amended to keep Medway in Kent for ceremonial purposes.

City status
Since it was the local government district of Rochester-upon-Medway that officially held city status under the 1982 letters patent, when it was abolished, it also ceased to be a city. The other local government districts with city status that were abolished around this time (Bath and Hereford) appointed charter trustees to maintain the existence of the city and the mayoralty. However, Rochester-upon-Medway City Council had decided not to and as a result their city status was rescinded. Medway Council apparently only became aware of this when they discovered that Rochester was not on the Lord Chancellor's Office's list of cities.

Medway applied for city status in the 2000 and 2002 competitions, but was unsuccessful. In 2010, it started to refer to the "City of Medway" in promotional material, but it was rebuked and instructed not to do so in future by the Advertising Standards Authority.

Medway Council made a further bid for city status in 2012, when three cities were afforded the honour as part of The Queen's Diamond Jubilee civic honours competition. Ultimately Medway was unsuccessful with the eventual winners being Chelmsford (Essex), Perth (Perthshire), and St Asaph (Denbighshire).

Governance
As a unitary authority, the council provides both district-level and county-level services. Parts of the borough (generally the more rural north and south-west) are included in civil parishes, which form an additional tier of local government for their areas.

Political control
The council has been under Labour majority control since 2023.

The first election to the council was held in 1997. It acted as a shadow authority alongside the outgoing authorities until the new arrangements formally came into effect on 1 April 1998. Political control of the council since 1998 has been as follows:

Leadership
The role of Mayor of Medway is largely ceremonial. Political leadership is instead provided by the leader of the council. The first leader, John Shaw, had been the last leader of the old Rochester-upon-Medway City Council. The leaders since 1998 have been:

Composition
Following the 2023 election and subsequent changes of allegiance up to July 2024, the composition of the council was:

Four of the independents sit together as the 'Independent Group'. The next election is due in 2027.

Elections
Since the last boundary changes in 2023, the council has comprised 59 councillors representing 24 wards, with each ward electing one, two or three councillors. Elections are held every four years.

Premises
Full council meetings are generally held at the St George's Centre, along with some committee meetings. It was completed in 1906 as a chapel for the Royal Naval Barracks, Chatham. The building has a Chatham postal address, but was in the borough of Gillingham prior to the creation of Medway in 1998.

The council's main offices are usually at Gun Wharf on Dock Road in Chatham. The building was completed in 1978 as offices for Lloyd's of London. They vacated it in 2006, after which the council bought the building to use as its headquarters. The building was temporarily closed in 2023 following the discovery of problems with parts of the building's reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete structure. The building is not anticipated to reopen until 2026.