Ashford Council Confirms No Decision Made on Future of Grade II-Listed First World War Tank

Setting the Record Straight

Ashford Borough Council has moved to quash the rumours. No final decision has been made about the vehicle’s future — and the council is keen you know that. Online speculation and media reports had suggested the tank — a Grade II-listed Mark IV female, number 245, which has sat in St George’s Square since 1919 — was on its way out of town. The council says that simply isn’t the case.

No councillors have voted on any proposal to move it. And the Tank Museum, which had been named in several reports, has confirmed it hasn’t submitted any proposal to remove it either.

A Landmark Under Threat

But nobody’s pretending everything is fine.

Council Leader Cllr Noel Ovenden has described the tank as a nationally significant rare survivor — and he’s warned that rust has taken hold badly enough that, without action, it could be beyond repair within five to ten years.

That’s a sobering timeline. This is a piece of hardware that’s outlasted two world wars, a stint as an electricity substation — the council converted it in 1929, stripping the internal fittings in the process — and more than a century of Kent weather. External restoration work was carried out in 1972, with further work including replacement armaments and a protective covering completed in 1987 and 1988. Yet here we are, still asking what happens next.

So what exactly is being proposed? Initial conversations have taken place with tank restoration organisations to explore the best way to protect the vehicle. Nothing more concrete than that, the council says.

The Money and the Gaps It Won’t Fill

Ashford Borough Council has allocated £1 million towards restoring its historical assets. A meaningful sum — but the council has been candid that it won’t cover all the previous years of neglect. Which tells you something about just how far the deterioration has gone.

The tank’s Grade II listing means any formal proposal, whether restoration in place, specialist conservation work elsewhere, or some other arrangement entirely, will require public consultation. Residents and local heritage groups will have a direct say in what happens. That’s not nothing.

What Comes Next

Cllr Ovenden has said the council’s intention is to keep the tank associated with Ashford while preventing further decay. The priority, as the council frames it, is protection. Not removal for its own sake.

Local heritage commentators and residents have made clear in wider coverage that they value the tank as a symbol of the town, and that any replacement with a replica would go down very badly indeed. The council appears to have heard that.

Next comes the job of turning those early conversations with restoration specialists into something firmer — at which point a formal proposal and public consultation would follow.

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Key Takeaways

• Ashford Borough Council says no vote has taken place and no decision has been made on the tank’s future
• Cllr Noel Ovenden has warned the tank could be beyond repair within five to ten years without intervention
• Any formal proposal will require public consultation, given the tank’s Grade II-listed status

What This Means for Kent Residents

The Ashford tank isn’t just a lump of rusting metal in a town square. It’s one of the few surviving British presentation tanks from the First World War era, and it’s been part of Ashford’s civic identity for over a hundred years. If you live in or around Ashford, the public consultation process will give you a direct voice in what happens to it — so it’s worth keeping an eye on the council’s official communications for news of when that opens. In the meantime, the message from the council is straightforward enough: something needs to be done, and soon, but nothing has been decided behind closed doors.