Work to create an £11.6 million business park has been paused after it was described as an outdated idea based on flawed thinking.

The original proposal by Medway Council was to attract technology, engineering, manufacturing and highly-skilled support service firms to a bespoke campus next to Rochester Airport.

Big names such as Netflix were linked to the Innovation Park Medway (IPM) scheme, but the tenants never materialised.

Members of the council’s Labour cabinet said the previous Conservative administration’s philosophy of “build it and they will come” set it up for failure.

They also argued previous portfolio holders did not consider possible downsides.

Councillors agreed this week to pause the project and review its long-term sustainability.

A report submitted to cabinet on Tuesday (February 13) said changes to the way businesses operate following the Covid-19 pandemic were key to reconsideration of the scheme.

Portfolio holders Cllrs Lauren Edwards (economic and social regeneration and inward investment) and Simon Curry (climate change and strategic regeneration) said they had been getting to grips with how the previous administration pursued the scheme and have concluded it needs reconsideration.

They said the marketing for IPM was insufficient and the authority’s lack of an inward investment strategy meant businesses outside of Medway didn’t know it was a viable location to consider.

Cllr Edwards said she believed previous portfolio holders didn’t appear to have considered anything other than success and were not as cautious as was necessary.

She added the two businesses which were claimed to be ready to sign up were not quite as close as had been suggested – and their signatures were conditional on the council forking out huge sums for the construction of bespoke buildings.

Cllr Edwards said: “The financial picture meant we had to look at it again because the sums weren't adding up, and we didn't want to continue to throw money at something that wasn't working as the people who originally envisioned the project had hoped.

“The model the previous administration was pursuing and the way they were doing it was just no longer viable and was not attractive to the business community in the way it was meant to be.

“We've been having lots of meetings with officers to understand the status of the project so we could evaluate its future success.

“There were a couple of businesses with an interest, but a couple was not going to make this a success.”

However, Cllr Curry said the pause would not mean the end of the scheme, rather that it needed to be redesigned and rethought to make it viable.

He said: “What's been spent so far has been on the basic infrastructure, the roads, the drains, bus stops are in.

“This is a good time to pause and now we'll have a few months to sit down with the key staff involved and look at the site and see how we enable businesses to move in without huge costs to the council.

“This is public money we're spending here, and to borrow tens of millions of pounds without any idea about whether it's going to be successful, which is kind of what it was looking like, isn’t acceptable.

“This is a project which will be here in 50 years time and we want to make sure it works properly, so it's about understanding the vision for this for the future.”

Cllr Edwards added the scheme was a good idea in principle, but needed re-evaluation to keep it up to date.

Additionally, she said because much of the £11.6m already spent came from funding sources outside of the council, it was important to deliver the scheme, otherwise the authority would be liable to repay the money.

“We don’t want to continue to expend money on a project where there are significant red flags we shouldn’t ignore...”

At cabinet on February 13, members agreed the recommended plans to pause the scheme and use £200,000 of its budget to review possible options for its direction.

Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Edwards said: “The optimistic ‘build it and they will come’ approach of the last administration hasn’t worked.

“Businesses haven’t come in the way they needed to, and where a couple have been interested it’s been on the basis the council takes on risk, financial and operational, we aren’t able to support in the current climate of local government finance.

“We don’t want to continue to expend money on a project where there are significant red flags we shouldn’t ignore.”

A review of IPM will take place over the next few months and the findings will be brought back to cabinet to discuss.