What’s going for it? Imagine, if you will, a property developer building a garden village of beautiful, affordable, modern homes of exemplary design – not a faux gable or ye olde garage in sight – including hundreds for social rent for the council, all set in a luxuriant leafy backdrop of trees and “village greens”. Hard, isn’t it? Still, Span began such a thing for the Greater London Council in the late 60s, designing a model development high on the North Downs for escapees from London. These days, Span homes are ogled on websites such as the Modern House, but the company began life committed to building modernist homes at modest prices for the middling classes. New Ash Green was its biggest project. “This may well be a model of how to get civilised modern community living in an area of beautiful landscape,” said Labour minister Richard Crossman. Nearly. Peter Sissons moved in, and DJ Pete Murray and his sideburns spun the decks at the grand opening. Cool, or what? Alas, coming at a time when mortgages were being squeezed, it sunk Span, and New Ash Green was completed, more humdrumly, by Bovis. The indignity. The place still feels like a shotgun marriage between two visions of the future: the same-old-same-old, and what-might-have-been.
The case against Feels as if it could do with some zip, or investment; the village centre in particular could use a spruce-up. Not for those who hide from the neighbours; the residents’ committees are coming to get you.
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