25 - 03 - 2025
BPTW’s exemplary Chatham Town Centre Design Code for Medway Council has been shortlisted in categories for Plan-making and Fostering a Healthy Town Centre.
These awards celebrate transformative projects in planning and placemaking. The Plan-making category recognises plans that positively impact the physical or environmental quality of a place, as well as the economic or social wellbeing of its community. Additionally, the project has been shortlisted in the Fostering a Healthy Town Centre category, which highlights projects that enhance individual town centres for local residents.
The design code was developed by Medway Council as part of the Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) Pathfinder Programme. Working collaboratively with the Council, local stakeholders and the community, BPTW led a multidisciplinary design team that provided urban design, design coding, and architectural services.
The Adopted Chatham Town Centre Design Code SPD, unanimously supported by Medway Members, is a national exemplar aimed at reversing local health inequalities and ensuring Chatham becomes a healthier, happier, and thriving city. The Design Code was developed through genuine community and stakeholder engagement, establishing detailed parameters for high-quality, healthy places to create a meaningful and deliverable vision. Using innovative digital engagement tools alongside in-person events, with significant community response, the team has built overwhelmingly strong community support (between 77%-87% of community responses supported each vision theme) for the 2050 Chatham Vision, delivering wider economic and environmental benefits and greater certainty in the planning system.
The multi-disciplinary team included:
Create Streets: Led community engagement
HTA Landscape: Provided expertise in landscape and public realm
Urban Movement: Led on town centre movement
Lyall Bills & Young Architects: Assisted in testing the design code
Design South East: Led on an innovative code breaking design review process, and
Kent School of Architecture & Planning: Facilitated student urban laboratory to test the design code
