Tag: planning

Employment boost as Waterlooville business park plans are unveiled


I have been a tad busy with work for the last few weeks and have found it virtually impossible to get my head into blog mode let alone focus on local affairs. So I am sorry but this is old news but I wanted to bring it to your attention.

Finally, The News has discovered the planned development right here in Waterlooville. No not the enormous housing development known as WoW (West of Waterlooville). Even The News knows about that. No I’m referring to the development of the BAE site that I brought to your attention in my previous post

This is another of the Havant Borough Council / Portsmouth City Council/ East Hants Council job creation schemes. At least that’s what they say on paper. All of the proposed developments around Waterlooville are supposed to be creating jobs. But not one of them is being sponsored by any company that has signed up to move into the area and actually create those jobs.

The various councils will argue that you have to create the right conditions, prepare the environment to entice these erstwhile employers into the area. However, my fear is that what will be created will be empty commercial / industrial buildings.

We will have the new housing developments filled with a willing work force but no one to employ them. It is easier to build homes and to fill them than it is to get businesses started.

Just listen to the news regarding the economy and the apparent unwillingness of the banks to lend to businesses. To be quite honest I also wonder about the ability of folks to obtain mortgages to buy the new homes being built.

Employment boost as Waterlooville business park plans are unveiled – News – Portsmouth News.

Dunsbury Hill Farm – New Development Proposal Affects on Waterlooville


Today I received a letter from HBC (Havant Borough Council) pertaining to the proposed development of the Dunsbury Hill Farm site, adjacent to the A3(M).

The description of the development is as follows:

Site Address: Dunsbury Hill Farm, Park Lane, Cowplain, Waterlooville

Proposed Development: Hybrid planning application comprising a part outline application relating to employment uses and a hotel with conference  facilities and a part detailed application for a new link road with bus gate to Woolston Road; together with landscaping, infrastructure and associated works.

I am sure that they don’t intend to hide what this development really means but on first reading I was quite happy to go along with it. After all a new hotel and conference centre would not increase the daily traffic levels and road traffic noise. The additional employment opportunities that this would bring is also to welcomed.

However, without reading the actual proposal one is not likely to see what this really is. In their own words …

… proposed development of agricultural land at Dunsbury Hill Farm, Havant into a business and technology park with hotel, conference facilities and associated infrastructure

The  development proposal includes the creation of a new roundabout and potential dualling of a section of the Hulbert Road. In addition there are plans to create a new parking area double the area of the current lay-bys this development will replace. All of this is an indication of the increased traffic that the developers are anticipating.
I have lived in this area since 1985. The survey that I had on my house at the time carries a final comment

shame about the noise from the motorway

Over the years  I have become aware of the increasing noise levels and the changing nature of the noise. Waterlooville, specifically Junction 3 (J3), the junction of the B2150 with the A3(M),  has become something of a hub for the emergency services. As a result anyone living near to this junction will have noticed the increased siren activity. If recent news articles are to be believed the newly opened Hindhead Tunnel is also contributing to increased noise levels along the A3(M) due to heavy goods traffic choosing the A3(M) in preference to the M3 now that the Hindhead traffic jams have been eliminated.
The application pack includes  tables indicating noise levels. The constant theme running through the comments section is

A3 constant and dominant.

What is wrong with these tables is that they are taking noise level reading from a point on the centre line of the A3(M) into the development area and on into Calshot Road & Park Lane areas of Leigh Park. No measurements seem to have been taken from the Waterlooville side of the A3(M).

Yet this is the area that will probably be most affected by the additional traffic generated by the new development.

The location of this new development makes total sense when you consider the easy access to the motorway. Allowing traffic to clear the area very quickly.  However, the very fact that all that traffic will be coming and going via J3 of the A3(M) is going to have a negative effect on the area.

Presumably the planners are thinking that this new development will provide jobs for the soon to be residents of the Berewood (ex Newlands) development on the opposite side of Waterlooville. Did they also consider the additional traffic that will inexorably be sucked across the town ? Such traffic will also be using the J3 roundabout.

I also have other questions, ones that I have asked in other of my posts …

  1. Are there any potential tenants who have committed to take up residence of these new units when they are built ?
  2. Has a major hotel chain registered any interest in running this proposed hotel and conference centre ?
  3. Was the land adjacent to Junction 2, Horndean, considered as the site for this development ? If it was, why was it rejected since there is less potential for affecting local residents and the motorway access is just as good ?I am assuming that the answer is that the land comes under East Hampshire District Council rather than Portsmouth City Council.

I am the first to bemoan the fact that the planners don’t seem to have done much to provide employment for the residents of Waterlooville. So I am loath to be totally negative about this proposed development. However, I don’t believe that the planners have got the true measure of the impact that this development will have.

As usual the only people who will truly gain from this are the developers and, for a short while, the folks employed to carry out the construction.

Berewood Begins


The artists impressions of new developments always look idyllic. The truth of the reality is very often far from that alluring image.

Well, we the current residents of Waterlooville are about to find out the truth of what we are to be saddled with. The new development was to be called Newlands. A sign had already been put up, on the exit from the roundabout, but shortly after had been roughly painted over. Newlands was a truly uninspiring name and certainly one lacking in any imagination. The developer, Grainger, has decided on “Berewood”. A name that at least has some historical linkage with an area which was once covered by the Forest of Bere.

Development director John Beresford said: ‘We will start work next week and by September hope to have the main infrastructure in place ready for the first house builders to start work in the autumn.

‘That being the case, we would anticipate that the first dwelling will be ready to be marketed by the beginning of next year.

Then we will see the start in the rise of the traffic which is going to clog up Waterlooville. Ignoring the construction traffic and the mess that will inevitably become a bane on our lives during the build.

Even now this area of Waterlooville all but comes to a standstill during peak traffic times. With the additional housing becoming available early in 2013 this situation is only going to get worse. The difference is that there will be more folks heading into this area as they head home.

Lets not forget the new Sainsbury store that is being built on the other side of the road from this new development  as well as the new service station. All will be bringing more traffic to the area.

This is set to become one of the busiest road networks in the area what  with three major roundabouts and a set of traffic lights all within a mile.

For the sake of the new development residents, I hope the developer will ensure that there are no new roads which will become rat runs. I can see that motorists will be looking for a way to bypass this area and a new housing estate might just provide the escape route they are looking for.

The development will be built in phases, with the first one comprising 194 homes, next to the new roundabout on Maurepas Way.

There is no new roundabout here. This really is only an adjustment to the existing one. So we will see the initial phase putting 194 homes with this as there only way in and out.

Waterlooville councillor Paul Buckley said: ‘Having accepted the fact it’s going to be built, it will be good to see it actually starting.

‘In many ways they are not our homes, they are Winchester homes.

Councillor Buckley seems like someone who is resigned to the fact that an issue he is opposed to is going ahead. I’m not surprised when further into the quote he also states that these  are Winchester homes.

How does Winchester get so much of a say in what happens in our area ?

‘In terms of the economy of Waterlooville, from a commercial shopkeepers’ point of view, the town can only benefit.’

Which commercial shopkeepers would they be then. All these new residents will be rushing in their hordes to visit the charity stores, the pound shops and the cafe’s.

All of the traditional shops are leaving. Waterlooville centre is dyeing. What are our planners doing to entice the big names, the prestigious names into Waterlooville.

What do we have now ?

For the Cafe Culture  we have Costa Coffee.  For the kids we have Macdonalds. Major retailers are  represented by Asda, Waitrose, Wilkinsons, Peacocks, Superdrug and Boots. Most of the major banks are represented too.

Much money has been spent of making Waterlooville look like a throwback to the 50’s idea of a modern town centre.

Sometimes it makes me wonder where the planners heads are. Time will only tell what kind of hell they have committed us to.

Construction to finally begin on huge new estate for Waterlooville – Politics – Portsmouth News.