Officers back replacing the vacant Arethusa Venture Centre at Upnor with 31 flats. A viability report says the scheme works only with no affordable homes at all.

The Arethusa Venture Centre at Upnor, an activity centre for young people that grew out of a Victorian training ship on the Medway, would be demolished and replaced by 31 flats under a scheme Medway Council’s planning officers have recommended for approval.

The scheme also contains no affordable homes. A viability assessment concluded it is only worth building without them.

Medway’s planning committee considered application MC/24/2535 on 26 August. The council’s register lists the committee date but no decision, because any permission depends on a section 106 legal agreement being signed first (Medway Council planning portal).

What is proposed

Two blocks on the site of the vacant centre on Upnor Road, in Strood Rural ward. From the officer report:

  • a block to the south west, four storeys with a two storey element, about 13m high
  • a block to the north east, five storeys with a two storey element, about 16m high
  • 31 flats in total, a mix of one, two and three bedrooms, all with terraces or balconies
  • 47 parking spaces: 40 behind the buildings and seven in a basement
  • green roofs on both blocks, and a communal seating area to the front

The applicant is Arethusa Upnor Ltd. The application was submitted on 13 December 2024.

The affordable housing is the story

Medway’s adopted Local Plan policy H3 would require 25% of the homes to be affordable. The emerging Local Plan asks for 10% on previously developed sites.

The applicant argued the scheme was not viable with affordable housing on site and submitted a viability assessment. The council had it checked. In the officer report’s words, an independent development consultant “concludes that the development is only a viable scheme if it contains no affordable homes and commuted sum payments totalling £265,000.00”.

So none of the 31 flats would be affordable. Instead the developer pays £265,000 towards services elsewhere.

The £265,000 was trimmed to fit

The council’s Developer Contributions Guide produced a list of payments adding up to £271,763.99, which is £6,763.99 more than the viability figure. Officers dealt with the gap by cutting one item.

The report is explicit about which: the open space contribution, “including Deangate Country Park”, drops from £112,788.85 to £106,024.86. The reasoning given is that “critical service improvements e.g. education and health would be fully mitigated” this way, and that the open space money “would remain significant”.

Horizontal bar chart of the section 106 contributions sought from the Arethusa Upnor scheme, totalling 265,000 pounds: open space including Deangate Country Park 106,024.86 after a reduction; education 58,462.66; healthcare 27,953.32; Upnor Castle interpretation 12,584.76; Strood civic space 11,894.39; wintering birds mitigation 10,854.96; Hoo Sports Centre changing area 10,762.89; community facility 8,099.99; waste and recycling 7,649.56; libraries 7,300.50; footpath RS127 2,412.11; National Trail 1,000
What the developer would pay instead of building affordable homes. Graphic by Medway Live from the officer report for application MC/24/2535.

Why the buildings matter

The site was a youth charity centre. It began as the Shaftesbury and Arethusa charity in the 19th century and later became Shaftesbury Young People. The centre itself was set up in the 1930s, after what had been a training ship for young people was removed from the river.

The report says the use “ceased a number of years ago, due to not being viable anymore and the buildings and land sold off separately”. Officers treat the site as a non-designated heritage asset in its own right, because it “demonstrably represents an interwar ‘youth camp’ as part of the charity’s history”.

The most sensitive asset is the ship’s figurehead outside the front of the centre. It is listed at grade II (Historic England list entry 1460787), a painted female bust salvaged when the original Arethusa was broken up.

Officers conclude the development would cause less than substantial harm to the figurehead, “by the change in setting and severance of the associated charity use of the site”. They set that against a benefit: the landscape plan keeps the new seating and hardstanding around the figurehead publicly accessible rather than closing it off to residents.

Officers were blunt about the applicant’s own heritage statement, saying its conclusion of “no harm” to Upnor Castle used viewpoints that were not “representative of the most visible panoramas from the opposite side of the river”, and that it “misunderstood” the site’s contribution to the figurehead’s significance. They still found no harm to the setting of the castle, the Upper Upnor Conservation Area or the listed Ordnance yard buildings that face the historic dockyard across the water.

What people said

Five letters of objection were received. The grounds included the village being unable to cope, the swimming pool being “an iconic building”, the height breaking an established skyline, the width of Upnor Road, parking pressure, flood risk, loss of trees and impact on bats.

One further letter supported housing on the site but said faded double yellow lines on Upnor Road are not enforced, so more flats without road improvements would be dangerous.

The Dickens Country Protection Society objected on the grounds that the development is out of character and scale with the area.

Frindsbury Extra Parish Council “regrets the loss of the Arethusa Venture Centre but accepts the principle” of housing there, while asking for traffic calming.

The application would normally have been decided by officers under delegated powers. It went to committee because of the number of objections received against the officer recommendation.

What it means for you

  • Nothing is built yet, and nothing is permitted yet. Permission cannot be issued until the section 106 agreement is signed. Until then the register shows no decision.
  • If you want to see the paperwork, search MC/24/2535 on the Medway planning portal. There are 162 documents on the file.
  • “No affordable homes” is a viability outcome, not a policy change. Policy still asks for 25%. Developers can rebut it with a viability case, which the council then has independently checked.
  • The park money is the flexible item. When the sums did not fit, education and health were protected and open space was cut.
  • Upnor Road parking and traffic are not addressed by the contributions. The parish council asked for traffic calming; none of the twelve payments listed covers it.

Our guide to planning applications in Medway explains how to find and comment on schemes near you, and we track decisions on the Medway planning news page.

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