A town's skyline is to lose a distinctive landmark when a railway lighting tower is dismantled.

Network Rail has confirmed it plans to take down the structure which has loomed over Ashford station and its nearby sidings for decades.

The tower has become obsolete following the reconfiguration of the railway layout around Ashford International to make way for the high-speed link between the Channel Tunnel and London.

It had been hoped the tower would have come down over the Christmas period, but ongoing industrial action by rail workers meant this had to be postponed.

No new date has been set for the work to be undertaken.

Network Rail spokesman Chris Denham said: "We were going to take the tower down over Christmas but we had to stop the project owing to strike action.

"We are working on when we can do the job again - but it requires the power being isolated on HS1, which is very rare, so this could be a long wait."

The removal of the tower, which stands at the southern end of the station, represents just the latest change to the railway infrastructure which has been a part of life in Ashford since trains came more than 180 years ago.

Fred Garner, director of the Ashford Model Railway Museum, said: "Ashford's skyline has featured tall lighting towers for many years, providing light for the once numerous railway marshalling yards and sidings to the east of the station.

"We used images taken from one in the 1960s for our recent Ashford180 exhibition, giving a unique perspective of the town for those lucky and brave enough to make the climb to the top.

"Our exhibition featured many of the lost landmarks and features along the railway corridor, regretfully highlighting the erosion of the town's industrial heritage.

"In this case however I'd take a pragmatic view that says that maintaining an unused structure to prevent it becoming a safety risk is an unnecessary cost and it is a reasonable approach to dismantle it."