A council is due to reverse gears on its Local Plan development.

Medway Council's Local Plan is now expected to be adopted in 2025 after councillors voted to return to a previous stage of its creation.

The blueprint - which will run until 2040 - not only plots sites for potential new housing, but also commercial and employment sites.

Councillors voted to restart the consultation stage called Regulation 18 - which had already been carried out between 2016 and 2018 - during a meeting yesterdayTuesday (October 18).

That includes asking landowners to put forward potential sites for development and working on a sustainability appraisal and an assessment of habitats

The council's portfolio holder for planning, economic growth and regulation Cllr Jane Chitty (Con), told colleagues part of the reason for heading back a stage was because the government had upped the authority's housing targets from 1,586 homes a year to 1,675.

Council leader Cllr Jarrett previously blamed a lack of political consensus for the plans not going ahead to Regulation 19 ahead of a crunch vote last year, with the future of Chatham Docks being the thorniest issue.

During the meeting, Cllr Jarrett (Con) said: "It's all very well having political sport over the Local Plan, but the bottom line is we're all now seeing speculative planning applications coming forward with the council largely defenceless in terms of not having sufficient five-year land supply, not being about to meet housing targets - which are imposed by central government - and all the angst that goes with that in terms of inappropriate development, which otherwise would not be coming forward.

Cllr Jarrett, who is stepping down next May, added: "It will be fun to watch the process from afar."

Draft plans presented ahead of a vote on whether to go ahead with another round of consultation - which was scheduled for last October - indicated the council's wish to re-designate the land at Chatham Docks from employment to mixed-use.

Peel L&P has plans to close the site by 2025 to make way for 3,625 homes and commercial space, which has stoked cross-party criticism.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service ahead of this week's cabinet meeting, Cllr Jarrett said: "It's not a secret that I couldn't get political consensus to get Regulation 19 passed through council.

"Following that, officers worked on trying to come up with solutions for that but with every month that passed by, the evidence base became eroded - the evidence base that underpins Regulation 19.

"We got to the point a few months ago where it was plain to me that because of the erosion of the evidence base, because political consensus still wasn't there, but more importantly because housing numbers (targets) have increased, it was quite obvious to me that the Regulation 19 that we intended to publish was no longer viable.

"Some members seemed to think we could pick and mix; if we didn't like X in the Local Plan, we could take it out and replace it with something else and of course, we can't because you would immediately blow a hole in the evidence base."

Speaking about the events of last year, Cllr Jarrett said councillors were told the evidence base was "not quite ready, but almost" at the time.

He said: "The members that are tied - for whatever reason - to the future of Chatham Docks used that as an excuse to refuse to take the Local Plan forward.

"Others will say differently but that's my interpretation, and the facts bear that out."

Asked what he thought of these colleagues, he replied: "I won't be around after the election because I am retiring.

"Plenty of other members will and it will be up to those members that are around then to deal with the Local Plan problem and they will have to take into account all of the things before them at the time and they might not find that quite so easy."

Also asked what he thought of accusations that he is solely intent on protecting Capstone Valley, which is in his ward, he said: "I'm intent on protecting any sites of importance but it's in my ward, why wouldn't I be interested in that?

"Capstone Valley is the only green open space of any significance between this side of the river and our boundary with Swale.

"You go and look at a map and see half of the green space is on the Hoo Peninsula and draw your own conclusions. Where's the balance when people think about proportionate development?

"We have already got a chunk of housing going in the Capstone Valley because of an inspector's decision and it's going to rip the heart of the Capstone Valley in terms of green open space."