The Ashford Designer Outlet is a

shopping centre A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes ...

in Ashford,

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. The McArthurGlen Ashford Designer Outlet was designed by the

Richard Rogers Partnership RSHP is a British architectural firm, founded in 1977 and previously known as the Richard Rogers Partnership which became Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. in 2007. The firm rebranded from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners to simply RSHP on 30 Jun ...

and engineers

Buro Happold Buro Happold (previously ''BuroHappold Engineering'') is a British professional services firm that provides engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management, and consulting services for buildings, infrastructure, and the environment ...

, and opened in March 2000. There are over 120 designer brands located at the shopping outlet. On 15 November 2013, the Ashford Designer Outlet confirmed plans to almost double in size. In early 2018, extensive work began to allow new establishments, which was completed in November 2019. In 2020 the biggest European green wall (a wall covered in plants and vegetation) was added to the designer outlet, as part of an overall £90 million expansion to add 100,000 additional square feet of retail space.

History

In July 1991, the name Ashford Meadows Leisure Park was for a planping document submitted to the Ashford borough council. The mall was designed by Lord

Richard Rogers Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside (23 July 1933 – 18 December 2021) was a British architect noted for his modernist and Functionalism (architecture), functionalist designs in high-tech architecture. He was a senior partner a ...

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners Rogers may refer to: Places Canada *Rogers Pass (British Columbia) * Rogers Island (Nunavut) United States * Rogers, Arkansas, a city * Rogers, alternate name of Muroc, California, a former settlement * Rogers, Indiana, an unincorporated communit ...

, and work began around 1996. By around 2001, BBC presenter

Charlie Dimmock Charlotte Elouise Dimmock (born 10 August 1966) is an English gardening expert and television presenter. She was a member of the team on ''Ground Force'', a BBC gardening makeover programme, airing from 1997 to 2005. Since then, Dimmock has p ...

cut the ribbon on the property and it opened to visitors. There was discussion of almost doubling the original 185,000 square feet of retail space in 2013. In September 2015, councilors on the council "voted overwhelmingly" in favor of a planning application to expand the property. Construction began in late 2017. According to KentOnline, the construction shut down Newtown Road for several months, resulting in "controversy," as well as the closure of the original food court. In May 2019, a new £400,000 playground was opened at the mall, with space for up to 200 children, as part of an overall £90 million expansion to add 100,000 additional square feet of retail space. The full extension opened in November 2019, with new stores including Coach, Sandro, Maje and Karl Lagerfeld. Among various art features, it added a "living wall" installation with plants vertically growing across 25,000 square feet of walls, which the store called the "largest" such wall in Europe. Non-essential stores re-opened in April 2021. Reported KentOnline, the mall ordinarily saw 10,000 visitors each day, but had been empty for some time due to the coronavirus lockdown. In February 2021, there was some controversy when McArthurGlen management asked the Ashford city council to "relax planning regulations which currently force the site’s new restaurants to close at 7.30pm." Older existing outlets at the mall were allowed to close at 9pm, with the mall arguing the mall consistently received its lowest ratings for food, and it needed to extend seating and food options for late shoppers. Managers of the nearby town center argued that allowing the mall restaurants to stay open would have "the potential to encourage visitors of the Outlet to remain there rather than going into the town centre during the evening.... No evidence has been submitted to robustly demonstrate there will not be a significant adverse impact on the town centre." President of the Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce instead argued increased traffic overall would enhance "the offer of Ashford as a town."

References

External links

Ashford Designer Outlet
* Designer Outlet, Ashford Shopping centres in Kent Outlet malls in England {{retail-company-stub