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Iwas extremely pleased last week to see the marked improvement in the way our borough is beginning to look. Drovers Roundabout looked the best it has for years.

As I drove down towards Beaver Road, I saw our newly created in-house Aspire ground-maintenance colleagues hard at work on the grass verges, all of which will contribute to making a real difference to the appearance of Ashford.

In my previous column, I mentioned the opening of two new local community facilities, which are part of our ongoing commitment to improving sports and community facilities across the borough.

Another example is a sports pavilion in my own ward of Charing, which was officially opened recently by Paul Farbrace, coach to the England cricket team, and the mayor of Ashford, Cllr George Koowaree.

At the opening of the pavilion, thanks were extended to the relatively small group of local volunteers, who built it under the leadership and direction of Darryl Spicer.

For the past few years independent shops have been in decline across the entire country, but we felt that we should stop bemoaning our fate and step in and act.

At the time Ashford Borough Council bought Park Mall, nearly a third of the 34 shops there were closed.

We took decisive action to make it attractive for businesses to locate in Park Mall and it has worked.

Ten new businesses have moved in on a range of short and longer term tenancies, and the existing businesses are renewing their leases due to the dramatic turnaround in Park Mall’s fortunes.

One of our initiatives was to create the Made In Ashford shop at the mall, which opened last October.

Run by Ashford Borough Council, the shop brought together a collective of local independent start-ups and gave them a platform on the high street. They are given flexible tenancies starting from a minimum of three months, which is ideal for the early stage of a business’s life cycle.

Interest in joining the collective has been constant and the venture is stronger than ever. We started with six businesses, and now 10 are represented at the shop, the presence of which has helped to increase footfall in Park Mall significantly.

To mark the first anniversary of Made in Ashford, there will be cake and buck’s fizz for customers, who will receive 10% off their purchases on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, October 27-29.

While there are a number of significant new developments under way in Ashford, there is clearly a great deal more to be done, but we can all take heart from the progress thus far.

‘We felt that we should stop bemoaning our fate and step in and act’