"Green spaces are what makes Welborne different" with building work on the new 6,000-home town well underway

Welborne can be found north of Fareham on land next to the village of Knowle where the first new homes have already been sold. As part of a first phase of the scheme, 700 new homes will be created over the next four to five years, alongside the £113million project to upgrade junction 10 of the M27 to help cope with traffic flows.

Eventually the new town will have a population equivalent to the size of Petersfield and will boast four new schools, a health care centre, businesses and a ‘village centre’ - as well as the opportunity for a new railway station with land already identified for this use.

But Buckland Developments, which is leading the project in partnership with other developers, has said that sustainability will be the key to Welborne’s success and ensure things are done a little bit differently.

The development on the Southwick Estate has been a project in the making for nearly two decades, starting with an idea that a town of around 10,000 homes could be accommodated on the former farmland which is also surrounded by ancient woodland.

But those plans have been revised and reduced over the years, with a smaller area of land now being developed, leading out from Welborne’s new welcome centre which can be found just off the existing Knowle Road which links Welborne and Knowle together.

The first phase will see around 700 homes built, as well as a temporary GP surgery; a £50 million village centre comprising of shops, eateries and serve businesses; a bus service; and the opening of a new primary school which has been pencilled in for 2028. This will be the first of three primary and one secondary schools planned for the area.

Once the work at Junction 10 is complete in summer 2026 - which will create the ability to both enter and exit the M27 in both directions - land will become available for a new business park to be created linking directly from it. Other community facilities will eventually include a pub, village hall, vets, preschool and green spaces, and eventually a larger medical centre will also be created.

John Beresford, from Buckland Developments, said: “We have to get the right shops and businesses in there to last for the next 50 years.”

Boasting its green credentials, the project will also showcase the Dashwood ancient woodland thanks to the addition of a new 1.7 mile circular path creating access to the 94 acres of woodland which was previously in private use.

Mr Beresford said ‘green spaces are what makes Welborne different, the trees were there first’ explaining that the whole development has been designed around the idea of sustainability and ‘having the right infrastructure’.

“We can make sure that we get it right”, he explained, with Buckland working in partnership with smaller developers who are each taking on smaller phases of the overall project creating a high quality of housing which gives nods back to locally-sourced materials.

See the video embedded in this story for an interview with director of place at Buckland Development, Fiona Gray, who gives an outline of the project. We also take a look at the progress of the project so far.

For more visit www.welborne.co.uk