It’s all cropping up in Garden of England

Last week we reported that a secret drugs factory had been operating in a quiet residential street on Ashford’s Orchard Heights estate for some time before suspicious neighbours alerted the police.

And, when the cops raided the property, they discovered a cannabis production unit inside the semi-detached house with up to 300 plants growing, together with harvested leaves being dried.

Also hiding among the plants was a 25-year-old illegal immigrant, Albanian Robert Jaku, who told officers that he had been recruited as a “gardener” for the crop after a chance meeting in a coffee house in Croydon.

The upshot was that he was jailed for two years and nine months after he admitted his part in the production of cannabis, and the plants, worth a very large amount of money to the Mr Bigs behind the operation, were seized by the police and destroyed.

Then, just a few days later, another cannabis production factory was raided by the police on the Eden Business Park in South Stour Avenue, South Ashford, and three men were arrested on suspicion of cultivating cannabis.

As we also reported last week there have been a number of such cannabis growing venues raided by the police in and around Ashford in recent years.

So maybe it’s not that surprising that when you walk around Ashford town centre that the unmistakable smell of cannabis smoke, virtually everywhere you go, pervades the air.

It’s probably a generalisation but the open smoking of cannabis, particularly by young men between the ages of about 18 and 30 years, seems to be increasing.

And one of the things about cannabis smoke is that it is very distinctive and isn’t a particularly pleasant smell. It tends to linger and, let’s face it, is a pretty sickly smell.

So the upshot of all this is that there’s undoubtedly a big demand for cannabis in Ashford, as we’re sure there is everywhere across the UK, and there are plenty of people willing to grow it for the people who want to smoke it.

Often food promoters try to emphasise how “local produce” is produced “locally” and in the case of cannabis that definitely seems to be the case. Grown and smoked in Kent, as it were.

It’s a warning sign that’s very unlikely to warn anyone of anything – because it’s largely obscured by foliage.

But the picture above of a “beware parent and child” sign in Little Burton Farm Lane, Kennington, was taken and sent in to us by regular Nuts and Bolts contributor Ted Prangnell.

Looks to us as if Kent County Council is going to have to get the shears out before this sign is going to be able to do what it was put there for.

Result! The two real Christmas trees which someone kindly dumped on the pavement outside the rear entrance to the KE offices in the town centre have finally disappeared.

The trees sat there for the best part of eight weeks, with Ashford Borough Council saying it was our responsibility to get rid of them and us saying “Why should we? We didn’t put them there.” Then, strangely, someone moved them across the road, to underneath the ramp to the Edinburgh car park (not us we stress), and one day they’d just gone, thank goodness.

There’s been a lot of debate and a very mixed reaction to the new fleet of Little and Often minibuses now being operated by Stagecoach on some Ashford routes. They could almost be renamed the Love ’em or Hate ’em buses.

Most appreciate their frequency but there have been a lot of moans about the cramped interiors.

So like the old joke about how do you get to Wales in a car – one in the front and one in the back (boom, boom) – we wonder how many pensioners laden down with shopping bags or trollies, or mums brandishing pushchairs, can you get in a Little and Often minibus?

Suggestions, please, to kentishexpress@thekmgroup. co.uk