That a chunk of Winchester city centre is underused and needs regeneration is generally accepted. What development should take place is not, and has resulted in a row that could delay the project.
Winchester has a wealthy population and is a popular tourist destination, but the eastern end of the High Street is a jumble of poor modern architecture and poorly laid out. Some of the city’s major retailers have stores split over two sites, and there is little space in which to accommodate demand.
“There are opportunities for some of the better-known names to improve their offer,” says James Prowse at Atisreal’s Southampton office. “Winchester has got a pretty good high street and mixture of the sort of names you’d expect to see, but the shops don’t tend to fit what the bigger brands are looking for.”
Jeremy Braybrook, director of retail at local firm Goadsby, agrees: “Development will pull the rents upwards, and it can only help the city because it is lacking something.”
There is more to the regeneration proposals than retail, however. The council has been looking at the area for the past eight years, and sees it as an opportunity to bring homes and offices into the centre, reroute buses and improve public amenities.
It issued a design brief and invited developers to submit proposals for regeneration. Private developer Thornfield submitted plans for Silver Hill, as the area is known, and was chosen by the council. A development agreement has been signed.
Tony Langridge, chief estates officer at Winchester council, says it did not receive any other “serious” proposals.
Smaller site
However, London & Henley, which owns the Brooks shopping centre and land that falls within the Silver Hill proposals and would therefore be subject to a compulsory purchase order if the plans were approved has submitted its own plans for a much smaller site called Middle Brook, on which it would build retail and residential.
The two applications are due to be considered early next year.
London & Henley has already been reported as saying it would strongly resist any CPO of its land. It believes that it and other landowners have been left out of what it calls an “important project” with “no role to play”.
A spokesman for the company says it has approached the council about working with Thornfield.
“The council thinks that we have some sort of agenda where we are only interested in our own property and to hell with the rest of it, but that isn’t the case,” says the London & Henley spokesman.
Langridge says that discussions were held but no agreement could be worked out.
The two sides working together would seem like the obvious solution, but there is no doubt that this is a thorny issue. Riccardo Mai, Thornfield’s project director for Silver Hill, gives a firm “no” when asked if his company would work with London & Henley.
“Established planning policy clearly requires a comprehensive regeneration of the Silver Hill area in line with the city council’s adopted planning brief,” he says. “That is exactly what Thornfield’s proposals will deliver. London & Henley’s scheme for a small part of the site does not achieve this. Therefore, its proposals will inevitably fail.”
The council says it must honour its development agreement with Thornfield, and talking to other parties would go against that. However, Langridge adds: “If London & Henley wishes to put assets into it, then we will consider that.”
London & Henley is realistic about its chances of gaining planning approval, and sees challenging any CPO as its main option. It believes it has a good case, but then so does Thornfield.
If Langridge is surprised about the strength of feeling of the two developers, then he is not admitting it. He sees a CPO as a natural and necessary process in a scheme of this size, and has already factored in a nine-to-12-month period in which to conclude it. “Realistically, we are looking at a start on site in mid 2008,” he says.
It has taken eight years to get to this stage. The planning decision next year will herald a new phase, with many observers hoping it will not spell a new phase of hostilities.
|
|
|
Silver Hill £100m plans submitted June 2006 110,300 sq ft of retail, 31,200 sq ft offices, 9,400 sq ft live/work units and 282 homes, bus station, car-park, medical centre and Planning committee due to decide in early 2007 CPO required to assemble site |
|
Middle Brook |
