Your comments on the latest programme... Sunday 08 October 2006

We moved to Ashford 25 years ago on the basis the Channel Tunnel & Eurostar would bring opportunities for our children and a future in a growth area; that was "Thatcher" hype then & today we are suffering the same hype under her avid follower "Blair". Ashford has always had good constituency MP's in this period but the Ashford Borough Council was for too long inward looking, supporting self interests; today as with Central Government it is secretive and failing in all it's objectives and time scales for example the Stanhope fiasco, the Civic centre - over budget and way behind time, the mishandling of the proposed Wye science park behind closed doors. Then there is Junction 10 of the M20 a true stranglehold to all forced to use it. Always too little, too late! We are disgusted with Eurostar slashing international services to Europe when this was a key to development plans in our part of Kent but also for the Weald and E.Sussex too. Eurostar even refuse to be open with the so called study that justified these actions. Where is the Government in this? The Prescott plan for growth in this region covered housing but scant detail for real infrastructure to cater for such significant growth; including schools, hospitals and jobs; also against all good environmental reasoning with homes to be built in known flood plains. There seems scant difference between Thatcher's desire to be the one who physically linked us to Europe with promises of the growth it would bring to the region and the Blair government farago.Tories & New Labour have denied us extra resources in the SE by failing to deal with illegal & excessive immigration, low growth in real terms; who knows where the money was spent under Thatcher but we know all the resources are spent in the NE & NW of England with money drained from the South. Our daughters have spread their wings, unable to afford to live in the South East due to lack of jobs and expensive housing. One lives in Wales and the other in Northumberland. You might say our long term hopes and dreams of life with our family in the county of our childhood has been convincingly betrayed by successive national and local governments. As soon as the remaining elderly family in the Dover area are gone we will probably depart too. We have long ceased to trust any political party or local government officials. The country grows more and more like a "Big Brother" state where even the police have become politicised.
Richard Graham

Watched the program and heard the job views with interest as my views are that the only jobs in Ashford are Girly jobs or kids jobs !! Shop assistant is not a Married mans job to keep his kids.
Peter Kuske

Why is Patricia Hewitt insistiing that decisions are being made 'locally?' Doesn't she understand the 'domino' effect of changes to healthcare provision? For example, if, as is mooted, Guildford hospital loses it's A&E dept, that will mean 5000 extra attendances p.a. at East Surrey A&E, 370 of which will be admitted as inpatients. East Surrey does not have the capacity to cope with its' current A&E 'load', yet the plan is to reduce the number of A&E depts to 2 in Sussex & 3 in Surrey. Only recently, there was a 70-mile traffic jam on the M25- how many blue-light ambulances would be caught in similar jams if the number of A&E depts are reduced, with the consequent risk to patient care? By cutting essential services before putting viable alternatives in place can only put lives at risk.
Zena Dodgson

Wye is one of the last places in South East England that you'd be likely to achieve success with a science or research park, something that the man in charge of Imperial's project has known only too well since April, a leaked report has revealed. The study, which the college has tried to keep out of the public domain, warns that the commercial side of Imperial's vision would be jeopardised by Ashford's poorly skilled workforce and because the park would be sited 60 miles from Imperial's main campus. The paper - titled 'UK science parks and the ingredients for success' - was commissioned from Colliers CRE by David Brooks Wilson in February at a time when many connected with the project believed it would be a 'cakewalk' having secured the enthusiastic backing of Kent County Council and Ashford Borough Council. Since then, a string of confidential reports have cast doubt on the viability of the project while Imperial has made Wye its 'Plan B' as it attempts to woo BP to open its biofuels research institute at the South Kensington campus. Nevertheless, the Colliers report makes grim reading for anybody still under any illusion that Wye could be made to work as a commercial centre of cutting-edge research. The report itself has been buried by Imperial's estates department so we have no reason to think that anybody on the college's governing council or management board knows about the warnings it contains. It also makes very unpleasant reading for those responsible for the economic well-being of Ashford as a whole with its warning that the lack of a professional and technically skilled workforce in the borough will have a negative effect on any commercial research park at Wye. Colliers highlights seven factors upon which the successful development of any science park is dependent: location, accessibility, nature of design, quality of facilities, branding, academic involvement and skilled labour pool. Given that two of these are unknown because it hasn't reached the design stage yet, Wye Park scores on only one - branding.
Richard Bartley

re: pay as you throw. Unscrupulous people are likely to place their chargeable rubbish in other peoples' bins, or worse, over the nearest hedge. I believe that one bin collection per fortnight is the absolute minimum commensurate with public health constraints. In my opinion, fly-tipping has become a bigger problem since the advent of Landfill Tax.
Mike Neighbour

As an Ashford resident I feel the town is already a commuter town, with house prices as they are and lack of well paid jobs in the town you have to commute (to London)to work for a company that will pay you a sufficient wage to cover the cost of living...in my opinion the council is useless - they do nothing to attract new businesses to the area, they can't even sort out the shambles of Junction 10 works or the spiralling costs and delays with the Stour Centre - just what exactly does Paul Clokie - "Leader" of the Council discuss behind the ever increasing closed doors of council meetings ??
Jennifer Hobbs

Came in towards end of prog but re KCC want to say this is the worst council I have ever had to deal with, Thanet suffers consequences very badly.
Anon

This pay as you throw issue is important so why did you practically ignore it?
Ben, East Sussex

People will burn or dump their rubbish to avoid charges. This will be more damaging to our environment so it is ridiculous.
Stephen Springthorpe, Hastings

Ashford is growing, but the William Harvey Hospital is closing ward's and cutting staff!
Anon

We already recycle a lot so i would pay if it then was not charged on the council tax. However 75p was a lot for that amount of rubbish!
C Baker, Bexhill

Here on the island we have a major retail supermarket who have overlooked local unemployed people in favour of eastern Europeans. This is disgusting and what will stop this in Ashford?
Chris in Sheppey

Instead of charging more 4 rubbish I think recycling should be made compulsory I've been recycling 4 years.
Ben East Sussex

Who are there people? They don't seem to have a clue! I'm 30 yrs old and have lived in Ashford for 20 years. Less talk and more action please!
Anon

Anon I live in Ashford and Pam Alexander is not describing the place I live. There are very few jobs and housing developments are poorly considered without support infrastructure. There simply are not new office blocks of any significant size as Paul says!
Richard Cole, Ashford

Where are the jobs? No one wants a mother of 2 because I have to have time offand I can not afford child care will there be more help?
Anon

It is all very well for Damian Green to say many projects are coming on line but most of the projects are over budget and over schedule. Conservative run Ashford Borough Council have been a disgrace.
Chris Took, Kennington, Ashford

. Roads are awful more and more houses. Higher rates every year. I live here and dread the future. Town centre miles behind say Maidstone.
Colin Barker

The Politics Show???? More like the normal biased politics show!!! Wholescale coverage of the party conferences of the Big Three treason parties, but as far as I can see, nothing so far about the conference of the only party that supports democracy in the UK. I refer of course to the United Kingdom Independence Party, which calls for the restoration of full democracy to the UK, rather than Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats who have for more than 30 years supported the betrayal of our country to the EU through lies and deception.
Paul Stratton

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