"SMARTLINK" is a proposed fast link between the town centre of Ashford, Kent

Ashford, Kent

Ashford is a town in the borough of Ashford in Kent, England. In 2005 it was voted the fourth best place to live in the United Kingdom. It lies on the Great Stour river, the M20 motorway, and the South Eastern Main Line and High Speed 1 railways. Its agricultural market is one of the most...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and its suburbs and main amenities, creating an alternative to the car, reducing the overall impact of transport.

Aims of the scheme

SMARTLINK is one of the key elements of the transport strategy for Ashford (along with M20 motorway

M20 motorway

The M20 is a motorway in Kent, England. It runs from the M25 motorway to Folkestone, providing a link to the Channel Tunnel and the ports at Dover. It is long...

, junction 10 improvements, junction 10A development, a new Victoria Way and the dualing of Chart Road
) and will be the realisation of a significant increase in the number and proportion of trips by sustainable means, particularly passenger transport.

The new advanced passenger transit system aims to provide the vision for new services in Ashford by offering high quality, frequent, reliable, affordable, integrated bus provision across the town.

The plan is to give the SMARTLINK buses priority over other traffic and passengers improved waiting environments with real time travel information.

Routes

A three-legged SMARTLINK system is proposed linking the town centre with

1. Chilmington Green
   Chilmington Green
   Chilmington Green is a hamlet on the edge of the Kentish Weald comprising 10 listed buildings.Ashford Borough Council is planning to build a new dormitory town of up to 7000 houses on 1000 acres of productive agricultural land around the hamlet....
   
    to the south-west, possibly serving Cobbs Wood, Godinton
   Godinton
   Godinton is a suburb of Ashford, Kent in England, with its stately home Godinton House on the outskirts. Godinton is located between Great Chart, Hothfield and the town of Ashford.- Demography :...
   
    Park, Singleton and Stanhope.
2. Cheeseman's Green
   Cheeseman's Green
   Cheeseman's Green is a housing and commercial development to the south of Ashford in Kent, England. It is adjacent to Sevington and Park Farm. It will have 1100 new homes and 7 hectares of commercial space, plus a variety of community facilities....
   
    to the south-east, also linking with the Orbital Business Park, Waterbrook, the Newtown Railway works
   Ashford railway works
   Ashford railway works was in the town of Ashford in the county of Kent in England.-South Eastern Railway:Ashford locomotive works was built by the South Eastern Railway on a new site in 1847, replacing an earlier locomotive repair facility at New Cross in London...
   
   , Designer Outlet
   Ashford Designer Outlet
   The Ashford Designer Outlet is a shopping centre in Ashford, Kent, England.The McArthur Glen Ashford Designer Outlet was designed by architect Lord Richard Rogers and engineers Buro Happold, and opened in March 2000...
   
   and the International railway station
   Ashford International railway station
   Ashford International railway station serves Ashford in Kent, England. Services are provided by Southeastern, Southern and Eurostar.International services use platforms 3 & 4, whilst domestic trains use the original platforms 1 & 2, and a new island built when the Channel Tunnel opened...
   
   .
3. The Warren to the north-west, serving the Eureka leisure development at junction 9 of the M20.

Parking will play a key part in the overall strategy for encouraging use of alternative modes of travel and demand will be met by both the construction of new car parks and by the development of Park & Ride

Park and ride

Park and ride facilities are car parks with connections to public transport that allow commuters and other people wishing to travel into city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system , or carpool for the rest of their trip...

 at the edges of the town. Three Park & Ride sites are proposed to anchor the new system with a phased implementation programme over the next ten years.

The three-legged proposal has been to a large degree prematurely announced, aligned with particular developer land-owners interests in mind, over the interests of others.

Constraints

One of the constraints to implementing SMARTLINK is the lack of height and width underneath the existing Newtown Road bridge, which lies upon the Cheeseman's Green route. The existing bridge headroom only allows use by mini-buses, restricts two-way traffic and only incorporates a narrow elevated footway on one side of the carriageway. Several scheme options have been assessed and the preferred option is to replace the existing bridge with a new bridge to current design standards. This will improve accessibility by bus, cycle and pedestrians between the town centre and the surrounding south-eastern area of the town.

Proposed works include -

• Improving the existing headroom under the bridge from 3.0 metres to 3.7 m in order to allow use of Newtown Road by single decker buses, including future SMARTLINK buses.
• To increase the width of the carriageway from 5.1 m to 6.3 m to allow the free and safe flow of two-way traffic including buses.
• To replace the existing narrow 1.5 m elevated footway with a 4.25 m wide segregated footway/cycleway to facilitate the safe passage of cyclists and pedestrians.

In the longer term, the objective is for Newtown Road to be improved in further phases
to provide a strategic highway network extending south-east of the town to provide
improved multi-modal access to the housing areas of Cheeseman's Green and the
employment areas of Waterbrook and the Orbital Business Park.

Funding

It is planned that the estimated £30,000,000 cost of the development will be funded -

• within the new housing areas of Cheeseman's Green and Chilmington Green, by the developers and ultimately the new homebuyers
• the remainder being allocated by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM)
  Department for Communities and Local Government
  The Department for Communities and Local Government is the UK Government department for communities and local government in England. It was established in May 2006 and is the successor to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, established in 2001...
  
  

Completion

The proposal is to deliver SMARTLINK in two phases, phase one by 2012, with phase two by 2016, dependent upon the development of Cheeseman's Green and Chilmington Green. In practice, it is expected that the Park & Ride scheme will be in place by 2009  (originally 2008), using conventional buses, but then "streetcar

Tram

A tram is a passenger rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets and also sometimes on separate rights of way. It may also run between cities and/or towns , and/or partially grade separated even in the cities...

" type vehicles will be brought in to use as the development continues.