A band of model railway enthusiasts will open their new home to visitors this month - while still dreaming of a bigger town centre site.

The Ashford International Model Railway Education Centre (AIMREC) is now taking bookings for visits to its base in Bethersden from November 20 until December 18.

Prior to the pandemic, the model railway museum saw up to 400 people visit its Elwick Place exhibition every weekend, and the team behind the project hope success at their new home will prove the viability of a return to Ashford town centre in the long term.

It was previously hoped that AIMREC could take up residence in County Square - possibly in space once home to defunct department store Debenhams - but for the time being the costs involved have proved too great.

Modelling enthusiast Fred Garner, a member of Railmen of Kent, winners of the 2019 Great Model Railway Challenge, said: "It's too big a step for where we are as an organisation.

"To go from essentially nothing to thinking we're going to spend probably a couple of million pounds fitting a Debenhams out, making a long-term commitment to a lease, and then designing and building layouts that are going to run with the operational efficiency and reliability, and finding the staff to run it.

"What we need to do is set something up on a small scale that people can see is scalable into the bigger project, without over committing ourselves.

"It will give us some experience of setting up, of operating and of having regular visitors. We have set up a miniature version of what we could do on a much larger scale."

Plans for an Ashford-based model railway museum first emerged in February 2014, and quickly gained support from celebrities including Jools Holland, Pete Waterman and Roger Daltry.

Project lead Cliff Parsons originally eyed the Klondyke Works site on Newtown Road, however land contamination concerns made development unfeasibly expensive for the group.

The studio and workshop in Bethersden will promote the AIMREC project and allow visitors to see the winning Great Model Railway Challenge layouts in action alongside examples of other model railways in different scales and sizes and some special displays linked to railways and the hobby of modelling.

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