by Alan Watkins

What is stopping Medway  becoming a city? It’s the 20th biggest conurbation in the country and outside of the capital the biggest in the South East.

It is striving to improve – and hasn’t done badly with four universities, a fine campus and a new bus station. It has support in the community.

At 6/1, it was also second favourite (behind Reading) so someone fancied us. So why were we overlooked?

It could be the cavalier way that Rochester lost its city status, not once but twice (Whitehall has a long memory).

Maybe it had something to do with all the other events in 2012 and we’ve got enough to be getting on with.

There’s 200 years of the Sappers, 200 years of Charlie D, two annual festivals in honour of him and the Diamond Jubilee.

Charlie is that hirsute Victorian author and ex-news hack who wasn’t born here, spent much of his life in Pompey and Broadstairs (when he wasn’t hopping into his mistress’s bed) and died in Gravesham. Medway adopted him, but the government robbed him of his last wish, and buried him in a congested corner of Westminster instead of Rochester Cathedral where he really wanted to lie in eternal rest.

Someone worked out most of his famous scenes were set in Rochester (must have been a council researcher). We’ve bid for the City of Medway three times.

The point now is to start asking why a town like St Asaph (population 3,400) should get the title while 250,000 of us have no idea where it is.

And before any clever Welsh geographer mutters Denbighshire, that’s a county with the same size population as the district of Gillingham, Medway (93,000).

I hope the councillors are now re-examining their laid-back approach to the city bid, and comparing their lack of effort with the energy of the other contestants. Maybe Chelmsford will throw the bouquet our way next time.

It won’t make much difference: the next English city will probably be in the west, and most likely in the north-west.

I suspect the Rochester supporters will have had a collective smirk.

Right, back to the drawing board ...

Fred Bacon, the former Strood socialist councillor who died yesterday, often had a quiet grin on his face as he debated issues.

It was in keeping with his sense of fun.

One day we were chatting and the subject got around to musical tastes.

It was as we were discussing this that we discovered we shared our admiration for Tom Lehrer.

In particular we both doubled up at one particular song - poisoning pigeons in the park.

On his last council meeting, he came across to the press bench and slipped something into my hand. It was a CD compilation he had put together of his favourite Lehrer songs.

I play it whenever I get a chance: it's by the side of my computer at home, in a well-thumbed corner of my collection.

I know Fred will be reading this when he gets a moment.

In which case, mate, enjoy Lehrer's words one more time:

We've gained notoriety,
And caused much anxiety
In the Audubon Society
With our games.
They call it impiety,
And lack of propriety,
And quite a variety
Of unpleasant names.
But it's not against any religion
To want to dispose of a pigeon.

(I thought I just heard a dry chuckle).

***

The bus station on Globe Lane has finally got the go ahead - and no one is going to slow it down.

That, at least, is the plan.

But rather like the problems facing the local buses, timing ambitions do not necessarily match timing realities.

Arriva has had problems with customers angry at the delays caused by the road works.

It has had bigger problems (if that was possible) with the Traffic Commissioners, who have threatened it with all sorts of problems if it doesn't improve its time keeping.

The next few months will test all of us.

The whole area from Medway Street to The Brook and all the way to Union Street are to be the subject of roadworks and tree planting.

There's to be road widening.... and the mushrooms - shelters for passengers patiently queuing (in Chatham?) until they know where their bus will be waiting for them.

It will transform Chatham... eventually.

Who knows, in two years time the Queen might confer city status on Chatham during her Diamond Jubilee year.

Then again, Reading and Milton Keynes might be preferred.

***

I like the story I heard last night from ex-councillor Mark Jones.

Labour's former education spokesman suggested there was a touch of austerity to the by-election in River ward.

Their candidate is John Jones, a former Midlands councillor.

"It helps," he admitted.

"We've got plenty of Vote Jones posters in stock."

Ed Miliband, who is fighting his brother, David, and several other candidates for the Leadership of the Labour Party, went on the knock to help Mr Jones (J.) campaigning for votes around Melville Court.

"Hello," he said more than once to startled residents, "I'm Ed Miliband from the Labour party."

And with equal enthusiasm they replied: "Who?"

Campaigning 35 miles up the line in Westminster doesn't seem to have cut the ice in Brompton's densest housing development.

***

The outgoing councillor, Bill Esterson, now Labour MP for Sefton Central, also joined the campaign trail.

I hear he has been winding up the Conservatives in the Commons over the way the building programmes for the three Medway academies are currently hanging in the balance.

Among those stung into action was Cllr Reh Chishti, now also MP for Gillingham and Rainham.

Cllr Esterson - always one for sparring with the Rainham fireball - refused to stand down to allow him to speak.

Pity. It would have been interesting to hear his explanation if the Brompton Academy in his constituency fails to get the vital funds to rebuild itself to meet the needs of the pupils.

***

Cllr Les Wicks came out with a gem when introducing the new Youth Justice plan.

"This will make sure they are not left hanging," he said.

I thought capital punishment in Medway was replaced by a spell in the colonies.

***

That's it for a time. I am off for a couple of weeks, and plan to do an Otis - sit on the bay watching the tide roll in.

Before I go, I cannot avoid mentioning the demise of the public's few parking spaces at Gun Wharf.

The council requires you to book in advance for a parking space. Except there aren't any.

So grannies, pregnant mums, arthritic pensioners and others must park at the bottom of the hill (if there is an space at the library) then struggle up the hill.

I have advocated a number of times councillors upon election should be required to break a leg. That way they would discover what a lot of their decisions mean to a lot of local residents.

The sooner the car parking is 24/7 "pay and display" the better. Why is it that the public has to pay, but not the public servants they pay?

After all, 339 of them earn in excess of £50,000 a year (and don't pay for the privilege of parking).

Clearly, it really is time I had a holiday.

Frustrated sceptics who claim city status was a gravy train were a little off target this week.

No bottles of champagne were popped at the launch of the summer campaign.

If there was a gravy train (and no such substance was in evidence) it lacked any body.

The spirit was solely in the unveiling. The drinks were confined to tea, coffee and squash.

This is an austerity city bid - by an austere team girding its loins.

But it took them several hours to come up with how much was the bid budget.

We were assured it was being done on a shoestring, that it was a very inexpensive bid, that there were no consultants being recruited ... but "no, we can't give you the precise budget at this moment".

By early afternoon the total spend was advised - £4,673.10.

Never mind what Reading, Milton Keynes or Luton might spend on their bids to be the Queen's favoured community to become her Diamond Jubilee City.

As for losing Rochester city status (not once, but twice) it was a case of "Don't blame us - a previous administration should take the blame".

Surrounded in mystery, it will become legend how Rochester lost its city status in 1998.

Senior councillors from the Shadow Authority discussed Rochester's status at great length in their private meetings.

It was agreed that it was a matter for the new authority and a recommendation from the old City authority.

One proposal that had favour at the time was the creation of a parish council to be called the City of Rochester Town Council. It would keep alive the tradition, nearly 800 years old.

But what followed has never come out.

The final meeting of Rochester City Council took place just before the new council took over responsibility. Erra (the God of Mayhem) seems to have been ruling in the background.

The minutes of that meeting were never published. No one now knows who said what about it (if indeed they bothered to consider it). And if they did, those who were present seem to have conveniently forgotten.

Gillingham councillors didn't care. Rochester was "that lot down the hill", and it was not their place to set up a parish council, or to incur any debts for the city.

And so the City status slipped, inexorably, into the cloying mud of the Medway.

Do we get City status this time?

It is a matter for the Gods of Whitehall, aka the Queen's advisers. But there is a steely determination from the administration (even if the other parties weren't represented at the launch yesterday).

And, though no one would call me cynical, it would be a cheap way for the government to encourage the private sector to take over investing in the Thames Gateway.

A successful bid would give the opportunity for a massive street party in 2012 to go alongside the bicentenaries of the Sappers' arrival and our great author Charles Dickens' birth (in Portsmouth), the Olympians using our numerous expensive training facilities - and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

***

The machinations in the Conservative ranks at Rochester and Strood seem more than coincidental.

Peter Hicks and Chris Buckwell, the king pins in the local party, say it is the ward memberships' wish. It may well be.

But there was a lot of recruiting going on ahead of selections. And numbers of the younger party members have been muttering about "the old guard must change", about "dictatorial" behaviour and about the way the central party has a "different" viewpoint to the local views voiced by some.

Latest big name to face the chop is Jane Chitty, the strategic planning, ex Rochester City mayor, Cabinet member. She has been deselected at Strood North in favour of Les Wicks - the children's portfolio holder who lost the support of Strood Rural members.

Janice Bamber, a long-term Hoo St Werburgh resident (and non-driver as was pointed out to me) seems to have found a place in Rainham Central. But her husband Ken - Whip, Chairman of Business Support and all-round party tough guy - is still looking for a new political home, I understand.

A formal unveiling of the candidates will take place in a month's time. By then this round of manouevering will be over in Rochester & Strood.