Community And Businesses Welcome Return Of Ashford Town Centre Seating

The community and local businesses have given a warm welcome to parts of Ashford Town Centre being given a summer makeover. Between July and September parts of upper Bank Street and Middle Row will be decorated with temporary seating as well as floral displays and bunting, once again adding a touch of colour.

This Council-led temporary scheme delivers some interventions that links to key themes from the Town Centre Reset – integrated play, feature lighting, temporary public realm and outdoor seating. If successful this could lead to further, more permanent features in the future.

This short-term regeneration project aims to encourage active and healthy lifestyles by introducing informal play opportunities, attractive places to meet and spend time, and enhancing public spaces.

Keli Nolan-Lyons, Ashford Borough Council’s Town Centre Regeneration Manager, said: “We are always looking at ways to entice visitors and local residents into the town centre to spend time with friends and enjoy what the town has to offer.

“That’s why we will be bringing back a similar intervention with the furniture, but with a ‘theme’ to each area. Middle Row will have a “floral garden” theme and upper Bank Street will have an ‘abstract art’ palate painted on the furniture to coincide with the vinyls and murals in Bank Street.”

Love Ashford

Both streets will also have Love Ashford branded bunting in order to promote the Love Ashford website and social media platforms, where residents and visitors can find out more about Ashford Town Centre’s businesses.

There will also be an ice cream van Thursdays to Saturdays in Middle Row and will be installing colourful plants and flowers to enhance the footfall in this area.

To reduce waste and costs, the furniture has been recycled from last year’s project, being repaired and redecorated by local community artists and installed by Aspire.

Business engagement

Love Ashford Team has paid visits to the majority of businesses in both Middle Row and Bank Street in the past few months in order to discuss and gain feedback on this forthcoming public furniture intervention.

We have gathered feedback and taken on board comments and have concluded that the majority of businesses have responded positively to the return of this scheme. Below is a summary of their views.

Karine from Christophe’s Hairdressing and Beauty: “We have been in Middle Row for over 40 years and it’s about time we had something nice and positive on this side of town.”

Malcolm from The Tucked Away Take Away: “This is great for us and helps us out. Anything that makes it easier for everyone to enjoy the town.”

Darren from Tailor Made Mobility: “Looking forward to seeing a splash of colour in Middle Row.”

Parking bays suspended – no disabled bays removed

In order to create this space, we will need to suspend allocated public parking spaces, that are usually suspended between 6am-5pm, from 20 June to 30 September 2023. The disabled spaces in Middle Row and Bank Street will remain available.

The installation will begin from 20 June, and we hope to be fully installed for 1 July.

This will coincide with the start of the Ashford Food and Drink Festival for all of July, where we anticipate footfall will be driven to buy in store and takeaway in hospitality venues around the town. Additionally, a Dino Trail app is planned for August which is aimed to attract families to visit all parts of the Town Centre looking for clues.

Paint by numbers:

• 277.5 prepping and painting hours
• A team of 13 local artists working on the project
• One work experience young person spent some time volunteering on the project.
• 35 litres of paint
• 45 individual furniture pieces painted
• One local designer and mural artist – the wonderful Danielle of Tinybeegle created the design inspired by the mural festival
• One local paint stockist & paint expert who we consulted with and joined us on the project, Steph from Nest in Evegate

This was all managed by the team at Craftship Enterprise CIC (Made in Ashford).

Founder Melissa Dawkins said: “It has been such a joy to work on this project for our town, it is so colourful and fun. I have really enjoyed working with so many local artists who have come together to proudly paint and listen to the lovely comments of the public as they have seen it all start to come together.

“I hope it brings a smile to the faces of those who see it and use it. It has certainly brought me many smiles over the last couple of weeks while we have been creating it.”

What do the community think?

“This is so bright and colourful. I saw it from all the way down the other end of the street. It certainly cheered me up.” – member of the public as we were painting in situ.

“Nice to see a bit of colour around the place!” – passer-by.

“Look at the art, makes me feel so happy!” overheard from a child walking by.

For more information visit www.loveashford.com