Chatham Summer Festival

Place-Making Symposium II

Chatham Unitarian Church, Chatham

Chatham intra connects Rochester and Chatham city centres, extending along its High Street and located on the Medway River. The high street still retains historical buildings although it is cluttered with redundant industrial sheds and large-scale modern buildings.

Over the last two years we have been collaborating with Medway Council on the Chatham Intra High Street Heritage Action Zone, a project funded by Historic England. As part of this collaboration, we asked stage 3, 4 and 5 students to develop proposals to transform and improve an ailing High Street. Residents were consulted by students to understand their perceptions, hopes and any underlying issue that they believe may prevent the High Street being a vibrant and thriving core of the city. Exhibitions of student’s work were organised in the Sun Pier House and during an event in which the spatial, cultural and economic regeneration of Chatham Intra was debated with residents. It was in these occasions that residents informally manifested the need for a stronger presence of the University in Chatham both by introducing them to the range of ongoing academic activities and projects, and by facilitating a debate on the future of the city.

Symposium

We organised a public event in collaboration with Medway Council and called it the Summer Festival. The public event took place on June 30 in Chatham Unitarian Church, a church that is very well known in this neighbourhood. The public event was designed to share the outcomes of our research activities with residents, initiate with them a dialogue on key topics that are relevant to us all, and discuss ways in which our research on such topics can better match the needs of Chatham Intra residents. We circulated the invitation to the event through local networks and within Medway Council. We also discussed the selection of research projects to present. Looking at the most relevant research within our School and the University at large. We therefore identified 7 key topics and 7 world leading academics tasked with presenting their research to residents in a non-academic and engaging format, and responding to their questions.

The presentations were designed to be enjoyable, findings and reflections on these 7 topics were sometimes quite challenging to follow. Yet the audience was attentive and responsive. A lively debate followed each presentation, and a final exchange of opinions ended the event. Remarkably, many expressed the desire to continue the conversations initiated during the day.

There will be soon a follow-up.

List of Speakers

Prof. Catherine Richardson

Prof. Marialena Nikolopoulou

Prof. Lindsay Forbes

Dr Robert Darton

Dr Silvio Caputo

Prof. Samer Bagaeen

Dr Manolo Guerci

Dr Nikolaos Karydis

Dialogue