Ashford Borough Council (ABC) have closed and decided to demolish Bockhanger Community Centre in Ashford, Kent without consulting local people, and with no firm commitment or timeline to build a replacement. This despite the Council’s own Local Plan 2030 saying that they should “guard against unnecessary loss” of exactly this type of community and social facility so vital to the life of the community.

We say the people of Bockhanger and Bybrook (the two local wards around the Community Centre) deserve better than this and should be treated with more respect by ABC.

We are calling on ABC to do the right thing, to:

1. Commit themselves to a full consultation with local people - right at the start of the process – where they (not the Council and definitely not developers) are in control of deciding all the facilities a new Community Centre needs and gets, and agree when it happens.
2. Commit to provide a bigger and better community centre of the highest quality, good for at least the next 50 years, which must at a minimum include: multiple flexible rooms/spaces accessible for local groups and people of all ages and needs, a community cafe, and the Bockhanger KCC library back in the building where it belongs.
3. Commit to build a new community centre by the end of 2019 that actually meet needs of the thousands of local people from the Bockhanger and Bybrook wards. Already the community has been without a community centre for many months now – a situation which is unacceptable and that should never have been allowed to happen.
4. Commit to make no excuses about finances – thousands of local people and the Bockhanger shops have paid tens of millions of pounds in Council Tax and Business Rates to ABC over the last 50+ years of the Community Centre’s existence. You owe them after letting their current Centre fall into a state of disrepair so bad you say you have to demolish it!
5. Commit not to delay or make the building of a new Community Centre wait on a scheme that makes money for a developer. The people of Bockhanger and Bybrook have paid for a new Community Centre many times over, cough up the money and build it for them by the end of 2019.
6. Officially apologise to the people of Bockhanger and Bybrook wards for allowing a situation to occur where they have been without their community centre for many months and with no firm commitment or timeline for building a new centre – completely against the spirit of ABC’s own Local Plan 2030 and the Department of Communities and Local Government’s National Planning Policy Framework.

On Thursday 29th March 2018 Ashford Borough Council (ABC) closed the Bockhanger Community Centre which had served as a key social and community amenity for the people of Bockhanger and Bybrook for over 50 years.

Only a month and a bit later, and with no public consultation, on 10th May 2018, ABC voted to demolish the centre at an estimated cost of £150,000 citing “spiralling repair and operating costs” due to the building’s “poor state of repair” as key reasons for the decision. Many local people are angry not least because, as the Kennington Community Forum put it: “its state of dereliction is, in major part, a result of a lack of ABC investment over the years...”.

Despite the importance of the community centre to the life of the community the 10th May ABC meeting notes only mention a “Phase two of the project” that will “evaluate the redevelopment of the site.” but this effectively says nothing, and makes no commitment, about whether the community will get a new community centre, let alone when this might happen.

It is hard to understand how ABC could decide to raze Bockhanger community centre to the ground not only without consulting local people first, but also without giving a clear timescale or commitment to replace it.

The Bockhanger community centre is vitally important for the community, helping people to meet, socialise, stay active, and build their community. As the Council’s own Draft Local Plan 2015 to 2030 says: “The provision of good quality community infrastructure and services designed around people and their cultural, leisure, health, learning, social and well-being needs is fundamental to the creation of strong, vibrant, healthy and sustainable communities.”

Having closed it without consulting local people and deciding to demolish it ABC must now do the right thing. ABC must now commit themselves to a full people-powered consultation, and to build the new community centre the people need and want at the heart of their community, by the end of 2019.

The people of Bockhanger and Bybrook have been without a community centre for many months now with all the negative effects that follow for the whole community.

Please help the people of Bockhanger and Bybrook get the new community centre they need back at the heart of their community by signing this petition to Ashford Borough Council and Graham Galpin (Portfolio Holder for Corporate Property).