Business, Energy And Ashford Infrastructure

Business, Energy and Ashford Infrastructure with Tim Aker and Damien Green

Up at the crack of dawn, we had an interesting meeting at the beautiful Boys Hall in Ashford. It was a small group and we spoke about several issues around businesses and the energy crisis, as well as the infrastructure supporting new developments around Ashford.

As a local resident myself, I am always seeing new eateries and retail outlets pop up and sometimes within a matter of months, they are closing their doors. I've noticed this, in particular, at Elwick Place. Damien Green did point out that a large issue there was that the development opened just months before we went into a full lockdown, so this consequently has had a knock-on effect to the new businesses that opened and it's only now that the likes of the Picturehouse are getting more traction. Linda Garcia, a local business consultant said that for many new businesses, often it is because they don't have a sustainable business plan that they struggle to thrive. Businesses need to be looking at their target audience for one and not price themselves out of the market, not grow too quickly taking on additional space commanding even greater overheads and they need to have realistic projections about growth and how to go about this when going from a cottage industry to scale up production for instance. At this point, often this needs outside investment and a comprehensive business plan to have the best chance of succeeding.

From my own personal experience, having had some issues at my daughter's own school, I had contacted two local schools recently to find out the likelihood of her been able to change school if need be. Towers Academy informed me that they had a waiting list for all years as did North school and, in particular, they had 140 on their waiting list for year 10!

I brought this up with Damien Green and said that whilst we seem to have large developments going on in and around Ashford, the infrastructure is lacking. He did confirm however that Chilmington Green secondary school is due to be opening in September and that it required 400 homes to be occupied on the development before this could happen. The dual carriageway on Chart Road had been delayed but is still scheduled to go ahead.

We spoke about the energy crisis and entrepreneur Keiran Nyer, suggested that whilst businesses have their own health and safety risk assessment, wouldn't it be wise for business owners to take it upon themselves to have an energy risk assessment? How often do people in the office take it for granted that lighting and heating is pretty much on tap? Maybe it's about time that us employers take it upon ourselves to make staff more accountable for the energy we all use? Do we really need all the lights on in the office? Does it need to feel like a balmy beach in the office or can we carry about our day with less heat? The takeaway from this is that we should really be viewing our workplace as we would our own homes. It's certainly food for thought.

With prices on the forecourt already reducing, Damien Green seemed confident that by the summer, our fuel bills should have also reduced to pre-Putin levels which should be music to everyone's ears. With the government subsidised funding also coming to an end, this will hopefully give us all peace of mind in the year ahead.

Frances Hunt - Mockford and Hunt 10th February 2023