Winklebury, Basingstoke
Our aim to regenerate and transform Winklebury to bring long-term improvements to those living and working in the area.
Our aim to regenerate and transform Winklebury to bring long-term improvements to those living and working in the area.
Our Winklebury regeneration plans are focused on transforming the local area to bring long-term improvements to those living and working in the community. Encompassing the Winklebury Centre, the former Play Council site, land off Carisbrooke Close and the former Fort Hill School site.
To deliver around 200 high-quality homes, a minimum of 40% will be for affordable housing, addressing an important priority in the area. We will also create a new large community park at the former Fort Hill School site, a pre-school, high-quality play facility, sustainable and flexible community space and a healthcare centre, and retail hub that meets local needs and reflects the changing retail landscape.
Take a look at our CGI fly through below to see how we propose to transform Winklebury.
We're working closely with Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, Hampshire County Council, and the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board (ICB - previously NHS Clinical Commissioning Group) on our regeneration plans to ensure we create a high-quality and sustainable community which everyone can be proud of.
We’ve worked in collaboration with the community, council, stakeholders and influencers to ensure our proposals will benefit the local area.
We first met the public and community stakeholder groups in February 2020 for a community planning day and were delighted with how many people were in attendance. We listened to their ideas for the regeneration, and they told us what was most important to them. We really value this input and feedback and have used it to help shape our proposals.
Since then, we've been revising our plans and hosted a public webinar on 16 March 2022 to present our updated proposals and answer questions from the community.
You can watch the recording of the webinar, download our FAQs, view our exhibition boards from our community consultation event in 2020 and read our feedback report below.
View our exhibition boards from our community consultation event
Take a look at the feedback report from our community consultation event
Since our community planning day in February 2020, we’ve been keeping local residents and stakeholders updated on how we've incorporated their feedback and the progress of our proposals through the following newsletters:
We will continue to engage with the community and stakeholders through a variety of avenues throughout the duration of the development.
To fully regenerate and transform the Winklebury Centre into new homes and retail units with street frontage and better parking, we need to decant existing residents living in the flats and temporarily move business owners. We understand the impact this will have on both residents and business owners so we’re supporting them every step of the way.
We’re working with all residents in the Winklebury Centre to understand their circumstances so we can support them in finding a new home that suits their needs and aspirations. We’re also working closely with Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council to ensure a smooth home move process for all social housing residents.
Our proposed development will be completed in phases. We’re aiming to complete our development on the former Fort Hill School site before regenerating the Winklebury Centre, allowing us to offer those customers a new home in the new Fort Hill community once completed.
To support business owners and minimise any disruption to their trade we’ve been liaising with each retailer to discuss their individual needs and future aspirations. Whilst the new units are being built, we’ll offer them the option to use temporary retail spaces within the centre so they can continue their trade and position as key businesses in the area. We’re currently in the process of surveying all retail units in the Winklebury Centre and we’re putting together a comprehensive plan, using a specialist provider, for the temporary relocation of the businesses during the construction period.
Once the regeneration is complete the retailers will benefit from enhanced facilities, better locations and an increase in footfall.
If you’re an existing customer or business owner and have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email winklebury@vividhomes.co.uk or phone 0800 652 0898.
Basingstoke Council approved our planning application in November 2023 for 203 highly sustainable new homes. Including more than 40% of
these will be affordable, great news for local people on the housing waiting list.
We will be liaising with individual customers, and would encourage any affected customers to contact us.
On Wednesday 8 November 2023, Basingstoke and Deane Council approved the planning application for 203 new homes, community space, a medical centre, retail units, a preschool, new play area and associated infrastructure and landscaping. We are currently working with Basingstoke and Hampshire Councils to finalise the legal agreements before the planning is issued. We expect this to be this summer.
There is always a lot to do behind the scenes before building work can start on site. We expect this prestart activity to take about 12 months to complete. Currently we are proposing to begin building work on the Fort Hill school site, probably starting with the preschool, and moving on the new housing and play area. We hope to finalise the programme in the autumn of this year. So, the phasing below is likely to change in time.
Yes, the work will be done in phases but these are subject to change. The phases are likely to be along these lines.
Regeneration projects are complex and time consuming, so we are projecting a 3 - 4-year building programme period to construct the entire scheme. It is early days in the process, but we optimistically anticipate the sites will come forward as follows:
But these dates are all subject to change depending on circumstances.
We’re working closely with people living in the existing homes, which will be replaced by new, high-quality homes, to find them a new home that suits their requirements and meets their aspirations. Some might move to the new homes we’re building as part of our proposals while others will move to homes elsewhere. We plan to build the new homes on Fort Hill before regenerating the Winklebury Centre, so that the residents moving there will only need to move once. We’ve been working closely with Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council to ensure the moving process is as smooth as possible for our social housing residents.
In addition, we’ll provide a home loss payment to cover any removal costs incurred, to those residents who are required to move. If any residents choose to move before they receive a formal notification from us, they may not be eligible for this payment.
We’ve worked closely and consulted with Hampshire County Council and Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council on the community elements of our proposals to ensure our plans provide the community facilities that are needed.
We’ve listened to the feedback from the community and have taken the decision to include a new proposed sustainable flexible community space into our plans. This will be in the Winklebury Centre, close to the health provision, the new shops, new homes and the church and will form a base to deliver a variety of activities to a wide range of groups.
Not yet. The pre-school will be one of the first elements of the scheme to be delivered (we hope during 2025) as it is replacing the current, temporary pre-school facility on the Fort Hill School site – discussions with potential providers will take place if our planning application is approved as we press ahead with delivery.
We have consulted with the church and the owners of the pub to consider and discuss the possibility of including these buildings, however, have been unable to agree terms so far and are therefore not able to include either in our plans currently.
A Compulsory Purchase Order can only be invoked when planning permission has been granted so would be inappropriate at this stage of the development. It is our intention to continue discussions with both owners, alongside Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council for a second phase planning application once the overall masterplan has been approved.
It’s important to us that our regeneration will improve the lives of those living and working in Winklebury and bring added wellbeing benefits to everyone, so consulting the community has formed a large part of our work in putting these plans together.
We introduced our proposals to regenerate the Winklebury Centre and Fort Hill at the Winklebury Gala in 2018. We then hosted a community consultation event in February 2020 to share early proposals and hear the views and feedback of local people. These early plans were shared on our dedicated web page, and the community was kept up to date via a series of three newsletters delivered to homes in the area. In March 2022, we hosted a community webinar and invited the public to view our updated proposals and ask questions.
Our plans will transform the retail provision to ensure it meets the needs of residents as well as the wider community. We will be temporarily moving business owners so that we can replace the current units with new and modern facilities with street frontage and parking provision.
We’ve been communicating with the current retailers and businesses to understand their needs and aspirations and while the new units are being built, we’ll provide temporary retail spaces to enable business owners to continue to trade during construction. We’ve surveyed all the retail units currently at the Winklebury Centre and working with a specialist provider, have created a plan for the temporary relocation. If retailers don’t want to use the temporary space we will provide, they will still have first refusal on the new units once they have been built.
After completion, the retailers and businesses onsite will benefit from enhanced facilities and an outward-facing, welcoming new layout that will support an increase in customer footfall.
Our commercial rent prices will be set by an independent agent which looks at square footage, footfall, parking, and location. As the provision of the new retail units is still some years into the future, we aren’t yet able to say what the price will be and therefore know if there is an increase or decrease in the amount.
We are proposing 652m2 of retail space in the main centre as well as a further 135m2 of pharmacy space at the new medical centre. The retail space in the main centre is flexible in how it is used – it can be split according to the individual requirements of the retailers.
We don’t know at this stage what shops will be on site. First refusal will be offered to the retailers currently occupying units at the Winklebury Centre, and we will be discussing new provision later in the planning process with interested retailers. We understand that a convenience store or mini supermarket with evening opening hours is of interest to people locally and we’ll be exploring this option with retailers.
We understand people will be saddened to lose this space, but we believe the loss is mitigated by the highly improved park we will build at Fort Hill.
Our plans are designed to transform the local area with long-term improvements for people living and working in Winklebury. There’s an urgent need for more affordable family homes in the area; to address this important local priority and build more of these homes, we need to redesign the open space at Carisbrooke Close.
This space is being replaced with modern new play facilities and a large community park on Fort Hill. This new family-friendly play facility will be next to the new pre-school and will be inclusive and accessible to all. We believe that the creation of this new family play park in the heart of Winklebury will create a sense of place and community ownership reducing the potential for anti-social behaviour.
This area of the site will be used to provide larger family homes. It will retain the existing boundary hedges, trees and some areas of grass to minimise the impact on wildlife, and there will be a new footpath provided to replace the existing route that will connect the Winklebury Centre with Fort Hill.
We’ll be enhancing the former Fort Hill School playing fields – currently unused and closed off to the public - to create an outdoor community hub where residents can socialise, exercise, and learn about the history of the hill fort.
Most of the existing trees and undergrowth around Carisbrooke Close will also be retained to provide green wildlife corridors and habitats to support wildlife in the area.
We know how important it is for the local community to have access to good quality healthcare. We’ve worked closely with the NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, to design a new, larger healthcare facility linked to a new pharmacy to meet the needs of the current and future community.
The CCG is responsible for determining the size and scope of the healthcare provision. Its modelling has considered the growing population and healthcare needs in the area, to help inform the service needs and building requirements and ensure we sufficiently serve the needs of Winklebury and an increase in residents from the Manydown development.
Based on this, we’ve worked with the CCG to design a healthcare facility that is fit for purpose now and in the future. The new health centre will benefit from general practitioners, nurses, therapists, and additional healthcare staff such as mental health workers, health coaches and social prescribers, which is a significant improvement to the current range of staff and healthcare provision available in the centre of Winklebury.
It’s important to us that the new health centre is in a prominent location with good transport connections for the whole community to benefit from. We’ve reviewed sites across Winklebury with the CCG and Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, and the CCG has concluded the former Play Council site on Winklebury Way is the most accessible and sustainable location. Here the healthcare facility will be a part of the newly transformed Winklebury centre which will include shops, a community space, car parking and enhanced open space.
The new medical centre has been designed based on the requirements laid out by the CCG, based on its modelling. The CCG is confident that the proposed design will meet the needs of the community now and well into the future.
Many local residents are already registered with other GPs in the area and will choose to continue to stay with their current doctor, and even if a substantial number choose to transfer, there is capacity in-built for new patients, including residents of our proposed new homes and from the Manydown development.
Yes. We’ve carefully considered Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s declaration of a climate emergency in our proposals, and we’re fully committed to putting sustainability at the heart of the Winklebury regeneration project. New housing in Winklebury will include modern levels of insulation and thermal efficiency to help reduce running costs for residents. Houses will be adaptable to allow for electric vehicle charging and the residents of the new flats will have access to storage facilities for bikes and bike friendly lifts to accommodate and encourage cyclists. We’ll be retaining as many trees as possible and enhancing the local wildlife habitat by planting native British species, to help increase the biodiversity of the area. We’re also proposing to use non fossil fuel heating and hot water systems in the new homes in accordance with new building regulations.
We are also considering modern methods of construction – modular homes with timber and lightweight steel frames are more efficient to build and better for the environment in their construction. These homes are designed to achieve the Home Quality Mark for housing, while our proposals for the medical centre are designed to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating.
EV charging points will be provided for public use at the Winklebury Centre, near to the new retail units.
We understand that the community has concerns regarding the site traffic that will be generated by development in this location, especially as development at Manydown could be taking place at the same time. We will be communicating with the developers at Manydown to ensure a coordinated approach to site traffic management in both locations.
We’re providing 369 parking spaces which is an increase of 23 spaces since the public webinar in March 22. This will meet the parking provision required by the council. Each of the sites within the master plan area will have their own specific parking requirements which will be agreed with the council during the planning consultation process.
We understand how important the local bus routes are to residents and agree that a link between the new development and the town centre is crucial. While Hampshire County Council and Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council are ultimately responsible for deciding the bus routes,
we have been involved in Hampshire County Council’s ongoing consultation regarding upgrades to the cycling and public transport links along Winklebury Way, part of the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan and linked to the Sustainable Movement Corridor that will connect Manydown and the town centre.
There are no plans to change the pedestrian access routes from Kenilworth Road to Warwick Road.
New combined pedestrian and cycle-friendly routes, which are well lit, secure and signposted, will be provided that will improve connections both east to west, and north to south of the masterplan area.