About forty minutes from Chatham via the A229 and M20. Newtown's railway terraces, the 1960s and overspill estates, Park Farm, and the newest streets at Finberry and Chilmington Green: a town that grew in stages, most of it on clay.
Ashford
Most of Ashford is on clay. Atherfield Clay runs under the centre, Godinton and Sevington; Weald Clay under Stanhope, Singleton, Park Farm, Finberry, Kingsnorth and South Willesborough; and Gault under Kennington. Willesborough and Chilmington Green sit on the firmer Hythe Formation.
Clay moves with the seasons and with tree roots, so foundations here are rarely the standard metre near trees. The Great and East Stour also cross the town, and in the floodplain south of the station recent building has needed foundations on concrete piles. Get the ground and the flood map for your address looked at before you agree a price.
Ashford grew in stages: Newtown, the railway-works village; South Ashford and Kennington, largely built after the 1959 London overspill agreement; Stanhope in the 1960s; Park Farm in the late 1990s; then Repton Park on the old barracks, Finberry from 2013, and Chilmington Green.
Permissions
Ashford Borough Council
Ashford is not in Medway. Ashford Borough Council decides planning applications and runs its own building control team. There are 42 conservation areas in the borough, including the Town Centre, Queens Road, Willesborough Lees and Kennington, and Article 4 directions in Queen Street and across South Willesborough and Aylesford Green, Beaver and Little Burton Farm. South of the station, Beaver and the Great Stour at Kennington are in Flood Zone 3. Ashford is also in the Stodmarsh catchment, where new overnight accommodation, such as a separate annexe, has to show nutrient neutrality. Check what applies before you commit.
Services in Ashford
Foundations designed for the Weald, Atherfield and Gault clays, deepened near trees and agreed with building control.
→Rear extensions on the Stanhope, Kennington and Park Farm houses.
→Loft conversions that add a bedroom without the nutrient-neutrality questions a separate annexe can raise.
→Re-roofs on the 1960s and overspill estates as their first coverings wear out.
→Brick matching in Newtown and the conservation areas around the centre.
→Second fix, stairs and built-ins on extensions and lofts.
→Common projects
Ashford is about forty minutes from Medway, mainly along the M20. Tell us what you have in mind and we'll put it in front of builders who work in Ashford.
Questions
Get quotes
A rough idea and a postcode is enough. We'll pass it to local builders who cover Ashford, and they'll contact you directly.