Ashford Town Centre Area Action Plan- Regulation 27 Publication Document
Schedule of Policies
Vision and Guiding Principles for the development of Ashford Town Centre
TC1 - Guiding Principles for Town Centre development
Achieving the Vision and Objectives for the Town Centre
TC2 - The Town Centre Core
TC3 - Elwick Place
TC4 - Park Mall
TC5 - Vicarage Lane Car Park
TC6 - Corner of Elwick Road and Station Road
TC7 - Ashford Library
TC8 - Godinton Way Industrial Estate
TC9 - The Commercial Quarter
TC10 - The Southern Expansion Quarter
TC11 - Victoria Way East
TC12 - Former Powergen North
TC13 - Victoria Way South
TC14 - Gasworks Lane
TC15 - The International Station Quarter
TC16 - Former B&Q Site, Beaver Road
TC17 - The Civic Quarter
TC18 - The Residential Transition Quarter
TC19 - New Street South
TC20 - New Street North
Topic Based Issues
TC21 - Multi-storey car parks
TC22 - Office, retail and leisure parking standards
TC23 -Residential parking standards
TC24 - Cycle parking standards
TC25 - Commuted parking
TC26 - Primary retail frontage
TC27 - Bank Street retail frontage
TC28 - Middle Row area retail frontage
TC29 - Green Corridors in the Town Centre
TC30 - Open Space, Recreation, Sport and Play facilities
Introduction
This Ashford Town Centre Area Action Plan:-
- sets out a clear vision for the town centre,
- demonstrates how the vision can be delivered,
- explains how significant change can occur on key sites, and,
- provides a sound policy framework for assessing planning applications in the Town Centre
This AAP is one of the key documents of the Ashford Local Development Framework (LDF). It is the first area-based part of the LDF to come forward and allocates specific sites. The plan runs from 2009 to 2021 (the end date of the adopted Core Strategy).
A formal review of the Core Strategy will be adopted before 2015 and so it is anticipated that a review of the Town Centre AAP will commence shortly afterwards to take account of any changes in Core Strategy policy that affect the town centre. The review will also offer the opportunity to update the Plan in light of progress up to that time. Given the inherent uncertainties of the commercial and housing markets, and the significant scale of redevelopment proposed in this Plan, the Council considers this would be a prudent approach.
The Plan is drafted to provide the clear and firm guidance needed to achieve the aims for the town centre, but also with a degree of flexibility, accepting that much can and will change by 2021. This is especially true in Ashford where it is not possible to be sure how the commercial market will react to the growth area role and the arrival of high speed domestic rail services in 2009.
For the avoidance of doubt, development proposals in the town centre area will need to comply with the policies in this document (including at the different levels of guiding principles, Quarters and, where relevant, site-specific) as well as other adopted parts of the LDF and any appropriate 'saved' policies / SPG from the Borough Local Plan 2000.
