Town has spread in all directions with new homes

I read, with horror, of the proposal by Quadrant Homes to increase the development of the Eureka Park site from 375 houses to 600, plus a 150-bed retirement village plus five hectares of business premises.

We have watched over the years as Ashford has spread in every direction.

This area behind the current business park provides a much needed haven for wildlife flora and fauna including wetlands and a nature corridor for all manner of creatures.

It also provides respite for local people from noise, primarily from an increase in traffic.

Given each household now has a minimum of two cars, this increase in housing and offices will result in a massive increase in vehicles and car journeys in and around the area.

We have been in Boughton Aluph now for five years and the amount of traffic through the village has increased unbearably.

My parents moved to Pluckley in 1968, when Ashford was a delightful bustling market town and its surrounding area and villages regarded as Darling

Buds of May countryside and the Garden of England.

The massive developments at Charing, Lenham, Harrietsham and Chilmington Green have destroyed this area for good. Where is the infrastructure for all this?

Doctors’ surgeries are struggling, roads are constantly having to be mended.

Ashford’s centre is drab and empty apart from impoverished young and old.

These massive developments don’t seem to have helped them much or provided affordable, social housing.

Every time I go to Wye I look with anger and despair at the Wye College buildings falling