Funeral firm picks up a top national award


A MAIDSTONE funeral directors has won a top industry award for excellence in the field. Albany Funerals saw off na-


tional competition to take the top prize at Port Lympne, near Hythe, on October 19. Jo Loveridge, who has owned


the business for the past 10 years, said she was “delighted” to have been honoured at the AGFD Good Funeral Awards. Albany, which has branches in


Loose and Ashford, became Fu- neral Director of the Year. Jo (51) added: “It’s a real tribute


to a good business model and a really good staff who care pas- sionately about the business and the industry they’re in.” She has three full-time mem-


bers of staff and two part-time. Despite a never-ending supply


of potential customers, the fu- neral business is a difficult one to crack, says Jo, who has two chil-


dren and a step-daughter. Albany expanded into Ashford


two years ago. She added: “As the firm has got


bigger, it has got easier in some ways because we are more confi- dent, but it becomes ever harder logistically. “The only problem is having


enough hours in the day to do it all done properly and keep peo-


ple happy. The Ashford end of the business will probably take about five years to really start earning its keep. “But I am very happy with how


it is doing.” Jo, who grew up in Walmer and


attended Dover Girls Grammar School, started work as a bi-lin- gual secretary at the United Na- tions in Rome.


Houses plan


at Tovil club A DECISION is awaited on a pro- posal to develop grassland around Tovil Working Men’s Club. The planned development of 18


homes would see a wall built to screen the club, which would share an access onto Tovil Hill. If approved, the two petanque


courts on the site would need to be relocated. Clarendon Homes says it wants


to build seven detached proper- ties with car barns; two semi-de- tached homes with parking; three terraced properties and a block of six “affordable” maisonettes on the “disused bowling green”. Neighbours say drivers have an


obscured view when they leave the site, and say adding more cars will only make the risk of an acci- dent worse. The site is included in Liberal


Democrat-run Maidstone Bor- ough Council’s Local Plan as des- ignated for development. The Local Plan has 17,600 new


homes contained in it, but MBC has earmarked another 10,500 units to be included in its review.


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Your community website www.downsmail.co.uk 12 Maidstone December 2019


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