The Health Secretary has pledged a new test centre for a Kent town following an MP's questioning.

Ashford has consistently been at the top of charts highlighting the worst authorities for coronavirus infection rates in the UK.

According to figures published yesterday, the borough has the second highest Covid-19 infection rate in England - 625.8 infections per 100,000 residents.

This is almost double the Kent average of 319.3 infections per 100,000 people.

Today, Ashford MP Damian Green returned to the House of Commons for the first time since lockdown and began to ask for additional government aid.

During the session, he said: "Along with many of my constituents, I've been very concerned that the number of Covid cases identified in Ashford has been one of the highest in the country.

"I recognise there are complex reasons for this but in those circumstances can I ask my right honourable friend to fill the gap there is in the regional testing centre network in east Kent by placing one in Ashford?"

To this, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock responded: "Yes Mr Speaker, I'm on it."

One testing centre is already at the town's William Harvey Hospital which - along with a series of outbreaks in care homes - is where Damian Green believes the high infection statistics are derived from.

Earlier this week, Mr Green sought to allay residents' fears, and said the high infection rate could be down to a number of reasons, including the area's international transport links.

"Based off information given to me by the medical leaders in the government, ski trains were arriving at Ashford with some people who had been in Northern Italy," he said.

"Now this was pre-lockdown in both countries, so you had people travelling to and from a badly-hit area without yet knowing how bad it was.

"A lot of people will have got off at Ashford, either because they live here or they were travelling somewhere else.

"Also, the numbers commuting to London in the days before the lockdown meant that they were likely to catch and spread it in Ashford."

Mr Green also said that the fact that the district's care homes were affected early in the outbreak may have contributed to the ratings.

He highlighted one "particularly bad outbreak" in a large care home - the Warren Lodge Bupa site off Simone Weil Avenue - which "added significantly to the numbers".

He reaffirmed a previous argument put forward by Ashford Borough Council's deputy leader Cllr Paul Bartlett that high amounts of testing resulted in higher figures.

He said: "Perversely, this is good news, in that the NHS locally was ahead of the game in testing as many people as possible.

"For a few weeks we simply knew more about infections in Ashford than they did in most parts of the country."

When asked about a recent increase in deaths in the area, and fears about children returning to school, Mr Green said: "We have seen those figures but obviously they will reflect what the situation was a number of weeks before.

"Those people who tragically died will have been ill for quite some time - the numbers don't intersect, if you will.

"In terms of releasing schools, missing too much education can impact a child for the rest of their lives, and young people seem to be much less susceptible to the virus."

For the latest coronavirus news and advice, click here.

Read more: All the latest news from Ashford