A 48-name petition from 38 town centre businesses asked for a short exit to the High Street. Officers say all three routes would delay the Christmas opening.

Thirty-eight Ashford town centre businesses signed a petition asking for a short walking route out of the new Park Mall car park to the High Street. Council officers have recommended that Cabinet do nothing about it.

Their reason is timing. All three of the routes they costed would push the work past Christmas, and one would delay the car park itself opening at all.

The recommendation goes to Cabinet at 7pm on Thursday 10 September, in the Park Mall Temporary Car Park report.

What is being built

The council bought the Park Mall freehold in January 2025. Planning permission PA/2025/1749, granted by its own planning committee in December 2025, covers the demolition of the shopping centre and the Edinburgh Road multi-storey and their replacement with a temporary surface car park.

  • 200 spaces
  • Permitted for up to five years
  • Demolition contract with O’Connell signed 16 March 2026, due to complete 28 October 2026
  • About 70% of the contract value spent by 26 August 2026
  • Construction of the car park itself due to begin in September, opening before Christmas

Demolition is almost complete. Procurement for a longer-term redevelopment partner is due to start at the end of September, and officers note the temporary car park “may only be a short time” from being handed to a developer for site investigations.

The petition, and why it did not formally count

At Full Council on 16 July, Cllr Paul Bartlett, the Conservative member for Mersham, Sevington South with Finberry, put a motion requiring plans for “a short-route exit from the temporary car park at the former Park Mall area to the High Street” in time for the car park opening. It was referred to Cabinet.

He also submitted a petition on behalf of the Central Ashford Community Forum, of which he is a trustee. It carried 48 signatures representing 38 town centre businesses, among them McDonald’s, B&M, Iceland, HomePlus Furniture, Ladbrokes, Coral and Vision Express. The signatories asked for an exit “in the area opposite Taylors Passage”.

The council’s petitions scheme requires a minimum of 50 signatures. At 48, the petition did not qualify for any formal step under that scheme, though officers say they will reply to it once Cabinet has considered the report. The businesses’ case is that a second entrance would bring them footfall.

The three routes, and what each would cost

As approved, the car park’s only pedestrian route to the High Street runs through St George’s Square. Officers looked at three additions:

Option Route Estimated cost Main problem
1 Diagonally across the site to Park Street, 52m long and 6.63m wide about £60,000 Requires a large pile of hardcore to be moved, with noise and dust for neighbours
2 Straight to the south side of the site, 32.9m long and 6m wide, using the existing ramp about £45,000 Risk from a buried concrete slab up to a metre deep
3 A path parallel to Edinburgh Road, ending at the top of Park Street about £40,000 Exits where there is no pavement; needs a Section 278 agreement with Kent County Council taking three to six months

Options 1 and 2 would each need a non-material amendment to the planning permission. Kent Police’s Designing Out Crime Officer advised keeping access routes “to a minimum” so that people entering the car park have a legitimate purpose, and specifically warned against it becoming a High Street shortcut. Officers say Options 1 and 2 fail that advice, because the hoardings on either side would block natural surveillance.

Option 3, they argue, would save almost no time. It would still leave walkers to go down Park Street and reach the High Street from North Street or Taylors Passage, which the report says would probably take as long as the St George’s Square route already does.

Officers also note that people are likely to use that north-east corner as an informal route anyway, because the land is open and council-owned.

The dates that decide it

The report sets out a programme for Options 1 or 2 that runs well past the shopping period:

  • Cabinet decision 10 September, with a call-in period to 22 September
  • Design, surveys and preparation of a planning amendment to 16 October
  • Amendment application decided between 19 November and 3 December
  • Works from 3 December, finishing 8 January 2027

Option 3 would finish later still, on 8 March 2027, because of the Section 278 process.

That is the heart of the recommendation. In the report’s words, all three options “fail to get a pathway opened by Christmas 2026, resulting in the car park not being available for the Christmas trade”.

The argument the other way

The pressure for a second exit is not new. The planning officer’s report in December 2025 recorded residents, businesses and the Central Ashford Community Forum raising the same concern during consultation, particularly about the link to Park Street, Taylor’s Passage and the eastern end of the High Street.

The applicant’s agents investigated and concluded a further access would need a corridor of roughly 30 metres between 2.4m hoardings, which they judged “unattractive and potentially feel unsafe, particularly after dark”. Extending the car park southwards was discounted as too expensive and likely to leave an under-used space.

Officers’ fallback is that accessibility can be reviewed in the new year, once the car park is open and there is real evidence of how people use it.

What it means for you

If Cabinet follows the recommendation on Thursday, the temporary car park opens before Christmas with one walking route into town, through St George’s Square. Vicarage Lane continues to serve the southern end of the High Street.

Cabinet is not bound by the recommendation. It can require one of the three routes, in which case the car park is unlikely to be available for Christmas trading.

Anyone can ask a question or speak on this item under the council’s Public Participation Scheme, Procedure Rule 9. Democratic Services take requests on 01233 330349 or at democraticservices@ashford.gov.uk.

Charges at the new car park are a separate question, and one that is also on Thursday’s agenda: the free-after-3pm offer being withdrawn from Elwick Place on 1 November is due to transfer here for six months once it opens. Our parking guide covers what the borough’s other car parks charge now.

Sources