A high street store which has been selling shoes for almost 40 years will be shutting next month.

Clarks will close its Ashford town centre branch for the last time on April 10.

The move follows a tough few years for the brand, which has closed a number of its premises across the country. And the news will mean another vacant unit in the heart of the town.

The possibility of the closure first emerged in August last year, when the firm announced its intention to cease trading from the prime High Street site at the entrance to the County Square shopping centre once the current lease on the property expired.

Clarks products were first sold in the shop when it opened under the name John Farmer in 1975, then in 1989 the shop was taken over by Clarks, in the same year that the Tufton Centre re-opened as County Square.

Nationwide building society had applied for permission to take over the unit but later pulled out.

Full story in this week's Kentish Express.