Ashford Borough Council's digital response to Coronavirus

The Coronavirus pandemic has provided many problems for us to tackle, including how we continue to engage with our residents and businesses while staying at home.

This has put more emphasis on our digital platforms to enable us to still meet the needs of our varied customers. Below are just a couple of examples of how we are supporting our residents.

Service disruption

As a council we have strived to keep as many of our services operational as possible. In instances where we have had to suspend or scale back services, it was imperative that we informed customers of these changes.

A service disruption page was set-up as a go-to for users to find out if a service is operational or not. This page has been updated almost daily and had more than 2,000 unique visitors within a week of being published.

Community groups

We have worked closely with Ashford Volunteer Centre to co-ordinate community support for those who are shielding. As lockdown began at the end of March we launched a form that could be completed by community groups that have been set-up to help others at this time. (LINK)

The detail from these forms has then been added to our map of voluntary and community groups in the borough. The map is divided up into various ward areas within the borough, so that users can see what help is available in their local area.