Now Notorious rather than Famous: Ashford's Shared Space

The shared space has become a laughing stock with the introduction of parking restrictions on Bank Street (Kentish Express 29 July 2010).

The shared space, where people are meant to be able to walk, drive and cycle is now subject to (a) pedestrian crossings, (b) parking spaces, (c) pedestrian walkway allocation, (d) bus lanes and (e) cycle lanes, The only thing that it appears to be lacking to make it a road is dividing lines at the centre.

Far from being a famous landmark, residents of Ashford now considered a shared space to be a notorious waste of money, time and resources by the borough council.

Perhaps with Sir Terry Farrell's desired implementation of an entire ring-road of “shared space”, we can fully embrace the renaming of public spaces to do exactly what the previous public spaces did in the first place. Alongside, of course, designed superseding functionality.