Communist Brutalism in the Patio of England

For centuries, Ashford had been an attractive, thriving market town.

If anyone has any doubts about the attractiveness of the old town, all they need do is take a stroll down the High Street and turn into North Street, taking in the red-bricked buildings with pegged tile roofs.

As the years passed and ideas of the architectural aesthetic changed to include Georgian and Victorian tastes and styles, one overriding characteristic remained; a sense of human scale.

In the 1970s, the Borough

Council merged with the Rural District. This Behemoth of a council, as far as I can discover, still had the wellbeing of the community at heart. Every piece of council printed matter bore a promise which ran (as far as I can remember) ‘It is the intention of the council to do all it can to improve the lives of all citizens.’

This all began to go out of the window once the government decreed that Ashford was an ideal area on which to plant some 30,000 new houses.

From being the Garden of England, the enlarged Ashford began to be recognised as the Patio of England.

It was here that successive councils became mesmerized with dreams of cosying up to multimillion pound developers who submitted plans for all kinds of housing estates.

Sadly, the overriding conditions for the construction of these cramped-together houses depends on planning regulations which might best be suited to the development of ant hills.

So, the developer submits plans for a scheme designed primarily to maximise profits. The planning department takes a look and, once it is persuaded that there are no infringements of regulations, gives the go-ahead. Now the scheme is given to the councillors to look at. The scheme ticks the required planning boxes, so it gets waved through by a comfortable majority.

But these are the out-of-town schemes. Now, what about the monstrous blocks being thrown up within the bounds of Ashford town itself ? The rot began with the hideous Charter House building, now absurdly called Panorama. It started a move toward East Berlin Brutalism which is proceeding with leaps and bounds to give this once-beautiful little town an aspect of Communistic inhumanity.