The Range has announced the opening date for its new Ashford store which will feature a mini Iceland and an Iceland Cafe.

The homeware giant will fill the abandoned John Lewis unit, overlooking Drovers Roundabout, from Friday, March 18.

Once open, it will join six other stores in Kent including Canterbury which also has an Iceland Cafe upstairs.

Bosses revealed their intention of occupying the two-storey unit last year, just months after the prominent shop shut for good.

They have submitted plans to Ashford Borough Council to turn a section of the car park into a garden centre, increase the retail space, and expand the items it is allowed to sell as part of a £1.2m investment.

These changes have not yet been approved however staff have already been hired and contractors are on site kitting out the new space.

If given the green light, the new garden centre will be built to the side of the store taking up 16 parking spaces, reducing the total to 183.

Chiefs also want to construct two cold stores in the rear service yard which will be used to house frozen and chilled goods for the Iceland section.

The store, which sells mid-price home and garden products, will join 160 others nationwide and hopes to stock about 65,000 items.

It hopes to create 95 part-time and full-time positions.

The company had previously been linked to the yet-to-be-built 'Drovers Retail Park' which will sit next to the empty John Lewis site, but chiefs say their "primary focus" is on "second-hand" units which have become empty.

Home Bargains, which is currently based on the Warren Retail Park, is instead set to take the spot, joining a Costa Coffee drive-thru, vets and five other shops when the retail park is eventually built.