Chatham has a long and distinctive history, tied up in the naval and military presence of the dockyard which closed in 1984. The site itself is located within easy reach of Great Lines Heritage Park, however this area of the town is a car-dominated, inactive space.
Historic mapping of the site shows that in 1937 it housed the Ritz Cinema, having replaced an area of housing. This was itself replaced in 1972, when the art deco-style building was converted into a bingo hall.
The bingo hall had been located on the High Street, but that changed in the 1990s when the creation of the gyratory system wiped out a significant amount of the existing built environment. In 1998 a fire damaged the original building, which was replaced with a modern bingo hall in the early 2000s. Buzz Bingo closed more than two years ago, and the site has remained vacant.
In recent years the town centre as a whole has suffered and retail units have closed. Where The Brook had been part of a busy area between the High Street and waterfront, today the car is more prominent than the pedestrian. The proposed development will provide a gateway to the town.
Plans have been put forward to regenerate the town and restore its former glory. This development could be an important part of that process by making efficient use of a redundant brownfield site in a highly sustainable town centre location.
Historically, there was active residential frontage in the 1860s and these proposals will seek to restore this lost townscape character.
