The decision by Ashford Borough Council to approve the plans to develop the Waterbrook site near Junction 10 is one of the most significant taken by the planning committee in recent years.

Local MP Damian Green is supporting a campaign run by charity The Reading Agency to encourage all primary school children to take part in this year’s Summer Reading Challenge, which launches across England and Wales on Saturday 14 July.

For some years one of the permanent issues which has been rumbling in the background without ever quite grabbing the headlines has been mental health.

Planning is at the forefront of many people’s thoughts at the moment, both locally as we move to the final stages of the preparation of Ashford’s Local Plan, and nationally as the Government ponders changes to the National Planning Policy Framework.

This week I bring good news and bad news. The good news is that Highways England has been briefing me about their new plans to avoid Operation Stack.

The recent event at Farrow Court, the excellent housing complex run for older people by Ashford Borough Council, illustrates what can be done when you treat housing not just as an important police area in itself, but as a key which can unlock the door to other desirable outcomes.

If there has been one subject guaranteed to make the blood boil throughout my period as Ashford’s MP it has been Operation Stack.

Anyone travelling past the Tesco superstore will have spotted that work on the new Junction 10A has already started in earnest. This is a junction which, when I first became Ashford’s MP twenty years ago, was promised “in seven years’ time”.

Along with councillors and officers from Ashford Borough Council I had an interesting morning showing the Minister for Town Centres, Jake Berry, around some of our significant changes.

Damian Green MP attended an event hosted by The Wildlife Trusts to show his support for the creation of a Nature Recovery Network.  A well-designed network of places for nature which links ups green spaces and protected areas in our towns, cities and countryside would have positive benefits for b