A Conservative motion asks Full Council on 15 October to pause the Ashford Town Council due on 1 April 2027, now the merger behind it is on hold.

Councillors will vote on Thursday 15 October on whether to pause the creation of Ashford Town Council, the new parish-level council due to come into being on 1 April 2027.

The motion comes from Cllr Peter Feacey, a Conservative councillor for Godinton. Its argument is simple: the town council was consulted on, and approved, on the basis that Ashford Borough Council was about to be abolished. The Government has since paused that reorganisation, so the premise has gone (Motions 2 and 3, Council agenda, 15 October 2026).

A second motion on the same night, from Cllr Johnny Shilton, Conservative councillor for the Isle of Oxney, asks the council to make every change of a house into a small shared house, or HMO, subject to planning permission across the whole borough.

What the town council motion says

The motion notes that the Community Governance Review “and the associated public consultation were conducted on the explicit premise that Local Government Reorganisation was proceeding and that Ashford Borough Council would be abolished in favour of a new unitary authority”. Residents were asked to consider a town council “in order to retain a ‘local voice’ once ABC ceased to exist”.

It goes on to say that a further precept “presents an additional cost for our residents at a time when the cost of living is an increasing concern”, and that residents have raised concerns about the validity of the consultation, whether the decision “remains sound”, and whether carrying on “may expose the authority to potential legal challenge”.

If passed, the council would:

  • pause all implementation work on Ashford Town Council until a full review is complete
  • ask the Selection and Constitutional Review Committee to reassess the validity of the decision in light of the changed circumstances
  • ask that committee to consider whether further public consultation is required
  • have the committee report back to Full Council before any further action is taken

What was decided in July

Full Council adopted the review’s outcomes on 16 July 2026 (minutes of the Council meeting, 16 July 2026). The plan, set out in the Community Governance Review report, is for:

  • a town council of 16 councillors covering the unparished part of Ashford, around 18,500 households
  • five wards: Furley (3 councillors), Godinton and Repton (3), North Willesborough (4), Victoria (3) and Beaver (3)
  • a vesting day of 1 April 2027, with the first elections on the ordinary election day in May 2027
  • until then, an advisory group of borough councillors for the affected wards plus one representative each from the Central Ashford, South Ashford and North Willesborough community forums, which is drawing up the budget and the expected precept
  • spending of up to £80,000 from the borough’s reserves to set it up, which the borough intends to recharge to the town council once it exists. The report notes “a risk that the new Town Council does not agree to meet those charges”
  • the transfer of the borough’s allotments in the area, which bring in about £31,000 a year

At that meeting Cllr Bill Barrett, an Independent, asked whether the new council’s power to raise its precept would be capped, and why residents had not been given a ballot. The Leader promised a written reply.

The second-stage consultation ran from 9 March to 24 April 2026. The council’s published result was that 54.26% of respondents wanted a town council, 37.03% did not and 8.71% were unsure (Community Governance Review).

What a precept might cost

The council’s own answer is that “it is not possible at this stage to say how much an Ashford precept would be”. The comparison it offers is the 2025/26 Band D precept charged by the parish and town councils that already exist in the borough:

Band D precept, 2025/26
Lowest in the borough (Sevington) £16.53
Borough-wide average £70.00
Average for parish and town councils £92.22
Highest in the borough (Tenterden) £181.36

Residents of the unparished area currently pay no parish precept at all. Whatever the figure turns out to be, it would appear as a new line on the council tax bill from April 2027. Your borough, county, police and fire charges are set out on our council tax bands page.

The second motion: HMOs across the borough

Cllr Shilton’s motion asks for “an immediately effective Article 4 Direction” covering every part of the borough that does not already have one. An Article 4 Direction removes the permitted development right that lets a house become a small HMO, for up to six people, without planning permission. With one in place, every such conversion needs an application.

The motion says there are 189 licensed HMOs in Ashford, 40 of them in Victoria ward, “though there are believed to be many more which are unregulated”. It also complains that management companies for shared houses have been “reluctant to correctly segregate waste”, leaving litter and accumulated rubbish.

The council already has Article 4 Directions for most of Beaver ward, Aylesford and East Stour ward and Bybrook ward, plus some smaller areas, according to the motion. The push to extend them borough-wide is tied to a change in how planning decisions are taken: the motion says that “local members can no longer call in applications automatically”, so an Article 4 Direction is the way to make sure HMO applications reach the Planning Committee. A separate report on the same agenda records that the Planning Committee is being made smaller under the Government’s National Scheme of Delegation (Political Balance and Administrative Structure).

Who decides

No single group controls the council, so both motions need support from outside the Conservative benches to pass. The political balance report for the same meeting gives the current make-up:

Bar chart of Ashford Borough Council seats by group in October 2026: Conservative 16, Green 12, Ashford Independent 9, Labour 7, Independent 3, out of 47 seats.
Ashford Borough Council seats by group, from the political balance report for 15 October 2026. Chart by The Ashford Times
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The Conservatives are the largest group with 16 of the 47 seats, but they are in opposition. The Leader, Cllr Noel Ovenden, is an Ashford Independent, and the Deputy Leader, Cllr Steve Campkin, is a Green (council members by party). The Greens have 12 seats, the Ashford Independents 9, Labour 7, and there are three Independents.

The meeting starts at 7pm in the Council Chamber at International House, Dover Place (agenda). The motions are item 14. The same meeting debates a 1,644-signature petition on overnight parking in Tenterden and is asked to adopt the Cabinet minutes covering the former Odeon theatre funding.

What it means for you

  • If you live in Ashford town, Willesborough, Repton, South Ashford or Kennington’s unparished streets, this is about whether you get a town council, and a town council precept, from April 2027. The motion does not scrap it. It stops the work while a committee looks again.
  • If you live in a parished village or in Tenterden, you already pay a precept and nothing changes for you either way.
  • If you own, rent or live next to an HMO, the second motion would mean every new small HMO anywhere in the borough needs planning permission, with a chance for neighbours to comment. It would not affect existing licensed HMOs.
  • If you want a say, borough residents can put questions to the meeting under item 7, and the meeting is open to the public.

We will report both outcomes after the meeting.

Sources