Waterlooville regeneration: Cinema, indoor market and a visit by Taylor Swift among the ideas to boost the town

It comes as the major plans to revamp Waterlooville town centre passed another milestone with people living in their town giving their ideas as the old GAME shop played host to the Waterlooville Festival of Ideas for four days last week. During that time, as part of the vision of creating a masterplan for the town, civic chiefs have been gathering ideas from the public about what they want to see happen.

Havant Borough Council leader Councillor Alex Rennie (Conservative, Bondfields) said the masterplan will cover aspects such as where homes and shops can be developed. He said there have been lots of diverse, fascinating ideas from the public like turning the empty Waitrose into a cinema, moving the community centre to the middle of town and an indoor market. And by having the plans, the council will be able to go out to raise funds from developers, the government and other sources to support Waterlooville town centre’s regeneration.

Wayne Layton, the council’s executive leader of regeneration, said he has lived in Waterlooville for 20 years and wants what’s best for the town. Mr Layton, of Stakes Hill Road, said: “I have the best job in the world because I get to change where I live. I’ve got the worst job because I have to change where I live. All my friends and family are here. Waterlooville High Street is really, really important and why we’ve needed to do this master plan.”

To create and gather data for a master plan, design and town planning agency Feria Urbanism started working for the council in September and felt it was key that the public had their say first and that those ideas were fed into the masterplan for approval. In the past, a plan was formed and then public opinion was sought. The agency has used a number of events, engaging with the public, business owners and schools through walking tours, going into schools and the Waterlooville Festival of Ideas with workshops and presentations.

Mr Layton said some of the issues are the street scene, 17 per cent of shops lying empty which includes Wellington Way.

Wellington Way has recently been taken over by Questmap, a large property company based in Southampton which has planning permission to develop flats above the shops. Councillor Rennie said Wellington Way has been the ‘cancer’ of the centre eating it from the inside but once shops open there and people start living there again it will spread as a good news story across the whole town.

The design and planners

Richard Eastham is an urban designer, planner and owner of Feria Urbanism and said he is part of a bigger, multidisciplinary team of architects, business advisors, energy consultants, town planners, property developers and economists. In putting the masterplan for the area together, Mr Eastham wants to involve the community it affects, the residents and business owners of Waterlooville involved. He said: “I wanted an event where the public could come in and share their ideas, and working four days in a row gives momentum and energy and we can design quickly but with a certain intensity.”

The event was run at the former GAME and Mr Eastham said it was important for the event to be run in the ‘heart of the town’ and ‘symbolic’ – with hundreds of all ages looking at the displays and getting involved in presentations and workshops about the potential scheme. He said: “The actual process that we’ve designed is about understanding how we bring life to the town. So we’ve done it through the process itself. We like that message that comes with it.”

Getting to know Waterlooville town centre

The process of gathering ideas started in October and carried on through to December with engagement events for the public. This included a series of more than 20 different guided walking tours of Waterlooville town centre which meant the planning agency were taken to places that mattered. The tours lasted an hour and were attended by more than 200 people.

Mr Eastham said: “They took us to places that matter, the places they liked, the places they didn’t. Those people have come back (to the old GAME shop) and I recognise some of the faces from the tours.”

Pop icons and donuts shops requestedFeria Urbanism has also been working with school children, two primaries, a sixth form college and two secondary schools with more young people engaged in the programme than middle-aged or old people. Visiting the shop, the children built models of what they wanted to see in the town centre which included Taylor Swift visiting the town. There was even a model of chart-topping singer and rapper Nicki Minaj having a concert in the high street. Another idea was for a petting zoo full of pigs in the town centre, a doughnut shop, ten-pin bowling and a water park. One student wanted hanging chairs for him and his friends to hang out and chat.

Most of these are inspirational ideas that won’t happen, Mr Eastham admitted, but it gave a flavour of the sort of thing a town centre can offer. He added that one primary school boy had visited three times by day two of the festival and was coming back again with his dad. The children talk about the town centre being a multigenerational place for older brothers and sisters, mum and dad, granny and grandpa.

Five districts or thematic areas

Mr Eastham described the town centre of Waterlooville as walkable, trapped behind a ring of dual carriageways and almost like a ‘walled city’ in Italy, just not as beautiful. Inside, the walled city has been divided into five districts: not as ‘romantic’ is the Asda Quarter where the community centre is; St George’s where the modernist church is; London Road South; London Road North; and Stakes Hill.He said that working with what’s already in place, they want to consolidate the shops that are in the heart of the town, making London South a place for food and drink and maybe bringing housing into St George’s.

Shopping

Mr Eastham said he wants to reverse the process of shops bringing people in by having people bring shops in. He said: ”People are not coming into town because the shops are disappearing. The shops will not come back quickly but what can bring people back into town is seeing other people having fun and entertainment and Interacting with different age groups.

“When it starts to resonate as a playground and a place where you will be entertained and have unexpected surprises through these community-led festivals, then we can start to generate interest.”

What next

Mr Eastham said they will produce a masterplan and an implementation framework which is property-led development around demolition, rebuild and refurbishment. The master plan will produce a blueprint for investment from businesses that the council can support.

Mr Eastham said there will be a time ‘lag’ between the masterplan being finished as a document and anything being built on the ground of up to two years due to planning. There is short-, medium- and long-term planning. In that gap, Mr Eastham said he wants the community to do painting projects, art projects, festivals, animation making visible change that’s inexpensive and quick to deliver, working with schools, colleges and other voluntary organisations.