MEMBERSNEWS
Kent Ambassadors visit ellenor during Hospice Care Week A group of 20 Kent Ambassadors visited ellenor Gravesend to discover more about what the hospice charity does and the support it gives to more than 2000 Kent families each year. Their visit came during the national awareness week - Hospice Care Week - and among those Kent Ambassadors who visited the hospice was The Rt Hon Lord Howard of Lympne CH QC, who is also chair of the board of trustees at Hospice UK, and Amanda Cottrell OBE. Others who attended included Lord Alastair Colgrain, Lady Tess Bruce-Lockhart, Sonja Wood and Alastair Jessel. The Kent Ambassadors are a group of highly successful and experienced people who either live or work in Kent and who have come together, by invitation, in a voluntary arrangement to help all aspects of life in Kent. Mo Tutty, Chair of the Board of Trustees at ellenor (left) with Lord Michael Howard. Photo credit: David Bartholomew
The group were able to meet with some of the team at ellenor,
including Mo Tutty, Chair of the Board of Trustees; Claire Cardy, Chief Executive; Jacquie Hackett, Director of Patient Care; and Rachel Holweger, Director of Fundraising, as well as being shown round the hospice building. Claire said: “It was an absolute honour to welcome the Kent Ambassadors to ellenor particularly during Hospice Care Week. “They seemed to really appreciate the opportunity to hear about the work we do at ellenor and recognised the impact we are making in this county, providing care to families facing terminal illness across North and South West Kent.”
Growth town Ashford powers ahead Ashford’s reputation as the fastest growing town between London and Continental Europe – driven by the commercial skills of Ashford Borough Council – has been underlined in the Kent Property Market Report 2016, design and print. The report reviews activity across the commercial and residential sectors in Kent and Medway in the past 12 months and looks at the prospects for the year ahead. Now in it’s 25th year, the guide is produced by Caxtons Chartered Surveyors, Locate in Kent and Kent County Council. A raft of new commercial developments are under way in the borough and more than 1,000 homes were completed in Ashford last year, with the district seeing the fastest population growth in Kent (for full details visit www.ashfordfor.com)
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Improved business confidence has spurred strong office demand across the South East, particularly for quality town centre space, which is in short supply. In Ashford, where the early benefits of the scale of regeneration projects under way has also fuelled an upturn in rents, permission has been granted for 7,479m2 at Dover Place in the new commercial quarter, which will include 54,813m2 of office space. In the town centre, work will start soon on a brownfield site in Elwick Place, incorporating a six-screen cinema, hotel, restaurants and bars, while Cineworld is extending its complex at Eureka Leisure Park.
ThinkingBUSINESS December 2016 - January 2017
McArthur Glen is to add 40 new stores and six restaurants to the Ashford Designer Outlet, while a new £26 million Ashford College campus is due to welcome its first students in September 2017.
The South East Local Enterprise Partnership has secured funding from the Government to build a new junction, Junction 10a, on the M20, which will be a catalyst for further economic and commercial development, the report adds.
A raft of new commercial developments are under way in the borough and more than 1,000 homes were completed in Ashford last year.