Work finally underway to give Chatham’s historic Luton Arches railway bridge a facelift

Work has started to clean and repair a well-known railway bridge in Chatham.

The 1858-built underbridge, part of the Luton Arches, carries the London to Ramsgate main line over the steep valley leading towards the village of Luton, now part of the wider Chatham area.

The red and green cast iron arch is seen by thousands of people every day on their way in and out of the town on the A2 road.

After a long life in service, the bridge now needs refurbishment to make sure it can continue to carry trains and passengers for another 160 years, as well as maintain its place as an admired landmark in the town of Chatham.

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Have your say on the future of our Big Local area here!

Have your say on the future of our Big Local area here by completing this survey https://t.co/oGBDB13KaY?amp=1 put up by Arches Chatham Neighbourhood Forum to feed into their Neighbourhood Plan for the area.

Some of the initial responses have indicated that people were overwhelmingly in favour of walkability, street trees, community infrastructure and terrace/low rise housing. Most people saw blank elevations, non-residential ground floor, enclosed spaces and high rise housing unfavourably.

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Arches Local Joined AECOM and ANCF on Masterplanning Walkabout

Since 2019 the Arches, Chatham, via the Big Local initiative has formed a Neighbourhood Planning Forum which is now designated for the purposes of developing a statutory spatial plan for the defined neighbourhood. The Forum, consisting of local people and businesses is focused on improving this forgotten corner of Chatham characterised by high unemployment, food poverty, poorly maintained housing and a very poor physical environment.

On Tuesday 3rd of March, the Arches ‘Chatham’ Neighbourhood Forum held a walkabout throughout the designated planning area with Stuart Woodin and Donata Satkauskaite of AECOM.

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Rodeo Fun at the XMAS event 2018

Our XMAS event held on 16th of December 2018 at Town Hall Gardens was a huge success with loads of fun things to do including a Reindeer Rodeo, Snow Globe, Face Painting and Junior High Striker it was truly a fun-filled afternoon for all the family to enjoy.

   

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Lets Better Shape Our Area Together

Through out 2018 we have been discussing with our community and stakeholders, creating a Neighbourhood Plan for our area. We have chosen its aims and objectives which are for the Forum to produce a Neighbourhood Plan to improve the social, economic, environmental and general well-being of individuals living in a designated area and to further the interests of businesses operating in the same area who support the Neighbourhood Plan aims. It shall operate without distinction or discrimination on the grounds of gender, disability, sexual orientation or race, or of political, religious or other beliefs.

We also after lengthy discussions with the Local Authority have together drawn up a designated area that includes the boundary of of our Big Local area and has taken in some additional areas that it was felt would make sense to include i.e because there were future plans to develop those areas. We also decided on a name for the forum which would be The Arches Neighbourhood Planning Group and we successfully applied to Locality for funding to help create a forum.

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