Ashford

Ashford is a large borough dominated by the former railway town of Ashford.

The landscape in the north of the borough is  part of the Kent Downs AONB, which is at its most stunning at the Devil’s Kneading Trough, near Wye. From here you can see across the upper Stour valley and all the way to Dungeness and Fairlight Cliffs, near Hastings.

South west of Ashford the landscape is characterised by low rolling hills and secluded valleys of the eastern Weald, around Tenterden, that descends down to the Reading Sewer, a branch of the River Rother that snakes around the Isle of Oxney on the edge of Romney Marsh.

Committee

Chairman: Christine Drury

Hot issues

• Ashford town was given ‘growth area’ status by central Government’s 2003 Sustainable Communities Plan. As a growth area, it had very high housing targets but a compact strategy focusing development in and around the town of Ashford. Like so many other districts, Ashford is under increasing pressure to accept less constrained development under the provisions of the 2012 NPPF.
• The River Stour is under threat from over-pumping (abstraction) and declining water quality due to the increasing proportion of the river flow being treated wastewater.