Town’s festive offering missed vital ingredient

So there it was, that was Christmas – did everyone have fun? As always, people complained that the build up went on too long. Those with sense just went on with their normal lives, ignoring the hype until a few days before the event. Mrs B and I went along to Park Mall for the ‘Christmas market’.

Most of the comments we heard were pretty downbeat – “it’s just the Sunday market with a few fairy lights” was one of the more printable – though a number also complained that the organisers had neglected the most important feature of a Christmas market… roast chestnuts.

With this we had to agree, even though Mrs B doesn’t actually like chestnuts.

Far from being the season of goodwill, last year seemed to produce an unprecedented outbreak of hooliganism and even a knife attack on a jewellery shop. None of which helps Gerry Clarkson’s attempts to sell Ashford as the ideal place to live.

Of course, he doesn’t actually mean Ashford town but the cosy little villages which were a few years ago all lumped together and instead of comprising an entity known as Ashford Rural District, now form a misleadingly named Ashford Borough.

If you look in a Collins Dictionary, you will see that a borough is ‘a town…that was originally incorporated by royal charter’.

One thing to be said for Mr Clarkson is his opposition to the planning permission sought to convert to flats the one-time Pizza Hut building at the lower end of the High Street, on the grounds that the units would be too small for comfortable living. I haven’t seen either the plans or the inside of the building but surely it would be possible to knock through a few walls in order to create more space?

While I find myself very often in agreement with Mr Ted Prangnell in his role as the town’s watchdog, I do think he is overstepping the mark by comparing the security fencing installed by the Bybrook Barn Garden centre to that of a Calais detention camp.

We live in a place and an age when vandalism and hooliganism are rife. Surely it is entirely reasonable for anyone to take whatever (legal) measures they choose for the protection of their property. Would Mr Prangnell prefer to see the site open to vandals who would make it look like a Calais detention centre?

‘Organisers had neglected the most important feature… roast chestnuts’