Kentish Express Ashford & District
Questions over future of Park Mall
This September will mark 35 years since Ashford’s Park Mall shopping centre first opened.
Built on land that once included the town’s former
International Supermarket, which had closed many years before, construction of the facility began in 1985.
The site opened two years later and initially proved a big hit with shoppers as tenants soon filled the centre’s many units.
But things took a downturn in 2008 when Next and New Look moved to the new
County Square shopping centre extension. Topshop and Dorothy Perkins also left.
In June 2015, following months of detailed negotiations, Ashford Borough Council bought the site and announced plans to fill it with “interesting and independent” traders.
Council leader Cllr Gerry Clarkson (Con) told the Kentish Express at the time how the authority was “grasping the opportunity to breathe new life into the town centre”.
“We are stepping in and taking action in order to rejuvenate the area,” he said.
“Buying Park Mall brings it into local ownership, creates an asset and income stream for the council and will enable us to develop the town centre as a whole.
“Hopefully we’ll secure a lively Park Mall. We want meaningful, quirky and attractive shops that will create a vibrant town centre.”
In November 2020, a new ‘long-term vision’ for the town centre was revealed – including plans to turn the shopping centre into a residential development.
Town centre regeneration manager Hannah ClaytonPeck said there were “suggested plans” that Park Mall will “one day become a new residential community within the heart of the town”.
“In this instance, independent businesses will be offered opportunities to move to the Bank Street area,” she said.
“The residential offer will house a variety of different people and become key footfall generators in their own right which will, in turn, will support the transformed Bank Street area and beyond.
“At Park Mall, the provision of a new multi-storey car park or utilising the existing one will be explored as a means of providing more footfall generation and to help anchor and deliver the aspirations surrounding the Bank Street area.”
Councillors approved the ‘reset’ blueprint in December 2020 but – apart from talks over the future of the Park Mall car park detailed on page 9 – the plans for the shopping centre are yet to progress.
As well as being home to the Kentish Express, the site also includes YMCA, WED2B and Poundstretcher, but it currently has six empty units.
Steve Salter is away