How many can afford these ‘affordable’ homes?

Astroll through the town centre is enough to convince us that the overall population of Ashford is getting larger – not more numerous, but spreading.

In fact there nowadays seems to be almost no one of “average” size – whatever that may be. This, we are constantly being told, is not healthy and will, if not checked, lead to clogged arteries, illness and even death.

A glance at a map of the Ashford conurbation will show that the town, too, is following this unhealthy trend.

Eager to rake in as many millions of government subsidies for building houses as possible, our council goes at it hammer and tongs.

Much use of the expression “affordable housing” is made in order to justify the various building schemes. It sounds good, doesn’t it?

I have just spent almost an hour Googling the term hoping to find a straightforward definition.

Most sources were vague but Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, says it is “housing which is deemed affordable to those with a median household income”.

Which is the point that separates the 50% lower earners from the “Other Half”.

This, apparently, might get our hopeful buyer up to a £100,000 mortgage.

But if he or she, in common with so many local people, is on a zerohours contract and minimum wage, they had best invest in a tent.

I was interested to read on its website that Ashford Borough Council’s “mission” is to “protect and improve the quality of life of every resident of the borough, now and in the future”.

If I were to suggest that this is clearly a mission unaccomplished, I would be dismissed as a pessimist.

This is the epithet commonly misused now to describe anyone who takes a clear view of the council’s doings without a pair of rose-tinted specs.

The council has done, and is doing, some good things but, perhaps because it is virtually a one-party council, it has also done much to alienate a large section of the citizenry.

It has squandered considerable sums on silly schemes while there are disabled people who are waiting for essential aids to living.

‘On zero hours contract and minimum wage, you’d best invest in a tent’