Shopping in Ashford

I've been meaning to get out while the sunny weather has been here the last few days so took the train to Ashford to look round and to buy a lighter coat for the summer. I found on the internet that the nearest Cotton Traders shop was in the "Ashford Shopping Village", which seemed an interesting development, seen in the aerial view from the Google map. As shown in the photo it consists of a parade of shops surrounding a car park and covered by a tent-like roof. So thought I'd look in there to see what their products were like, rather than risk ordering by post. It turns out that it has been rather oddly renamed the "Designer Outlet Village". I tried on some of the Cotton Trader offers, which however seemed different from those in their catalogue, and ended up buying a jacket in the M&S store there. I also walked around the town centre which is well stocked with shops and malls. The road leading there is where their strange new modern art style street lamps are, which have featured in the news recently. Apart from this it is much like most other towns these days.