Waterlooville Festival of ideas

The News, Portsmouth

30/01/2024

Transcript

00:00 I'm Councillor Alex Rennie, leader of Havenborough Council and we are on Waterlooville High Street

00:05 at our Festival of Ideas at the old game shop.

00:09 So we've had a really great turnout of people in the last couple of days.

00:14 It's been very busy, you will see from the pictures there's been a real flow of people

00:18 coming.

00:19 I think hundreds of people so far have come through the door sharing our ideas about what

00:24 they would like to see as the future of Waterlooville.

00:27 Lots of diverse ideas, ideas we would never have thought about without residents coming

00:30 forward and bringing them to us.

00:32 But we all know Waterlooville needs something to change to make it a success and actually

00:36 getting that feedback from residents, getting something residents can really get behind

00:40 is absolutely important to making sure we've got a master plan that works.

00:44 The master plan is a forward look as to how is Waterlooville ready for the 21st century.

00:49 We know it's had its challenges like all high streets that have declined particularly since

00:53 the post online era.

00:55 So what we're looking at is what is the long term future, where can we put shops, where

00:59 are we going to put residential, where are we going to put amenities and what kind of

01:03 things would people like to bring to the town.

01:06 So that's exactly what we're trying to achieve from the master plan, it's an outward facing

01:11 long medium to long term vision for the future of Waterlooville.

01:15 And tell me, have you heard of any fun ideas that you never would have thought of that

01:19 the public have brought to you?

01:22 So there's a whole range of things, I was just listening just a second ago to some of

01:26 the ideas that were presented here.

01:28 Things like let's move the community centre from the Asda car park to the middle of town

01:33 to make that a hub that's bringing people right to the middle of town.

01:36 So there are really interesting ideas like that.

01:39 People have talked about putting an indoor market on the Curzon Room car park which again

01:43 is a really fascinating plan.

01:45 I've heard people talk about how we could turn the old Waitrose store into something

01:49 that's like a cinema or something like that.

01:50 So lots of really fascinating ideas, all ones that are really great and clearly we've got

01:56 a lot of work now with our team to go away and consider those and see what we can really

02:00 pitch to investors to bring to Waterlooville.

02:04 So what's next, what's the next stage?

02:07 So we're going to bring all these ideas together, we're going to publish that into our formal

02:10 master plan and that will be our blueprint.

02:12 And then after that it's about going out to people who want to invest in Waterlooville,

02:16 about going to the landowners and saying this is our plan, buy into it, put the money in,

02:22 let's get people to come and develop it.

02:24 So that's going to be our way forward next.

02:26 We'll also be looking at a number of shorter term interventions, so things we can bring

02:31 in before then, so things on the high street perhaps, seating, vent space and ideas like

02:38 that.

02:39 So it's a mixture of things that we can do immediately that will hopefully get some immediate

02:43 benefit and that goes alongside our already successful vacant shop unit scheme which we're

02:48 putting £100,000 into offering the opportunity to turn a vacant shop into a new unit and

02:55 there's already several bids there which we're hoping to announce in the very near future

02:59 and that will continue to run.

03:01 So we've got some short term, some medium term and long term and all of those are really

03:05 exciting plans for the future of Waterlooville.

03:09 Tell me about, talk to me about Wellington Way because that, you've got, somebody's bought

03:14 it, there are plans there and everybody thinks it's an eyesore, so what's going on there?

03:20 Yeah, we all know that Wellington Way really brings down the town centre.

03:25 For me, it has been for the last couple of years, real cancer on the town centre.

03:29 It's been really eating it from the inside and actually having an owner like Questmac

03:34 come in with really interesting, exciting plans, that's going to really be beneficial

03:38 to town centre.

03:39 We're working very closely with Questmac.

03:41 I think there is real movement now.

03:43 They've got their plans agreed, they're moving forward, we've got interest from units to

03:49 move in there again and actually I'm really hopeful now that we've got an opportunity

03:56 to make Wellington Way a really great turnaround story for Waterlooville, really showing that

04:02 actually with investment, from pilot businesses, with support of the council, actually people

04:08 do want to invest in Waterlooville and you'll see it straight away in someone like Wellington

04:12 Way when you're getting shops opened, you're living there again and all of a sudden all

04:17 of those challenges we had before, the antisocial behaviour, the boarded up shops, the eyesore

04:23 as you say of the physical decline of Waterlooville, that turnaround story is something that can

04:28 spread as a good news story across the whole town.

04:32 Hi, I'm Wayne Leighton, I'm the Executive Head of Regeneration here at Haffenborough

04:37 Council.

04:38 We're stood here in Waterlooville High Street today outside of the Festival of Ideas.

04:44 This is a four day event that the council are running which is to consult with members

04:49 of the public to ask them what they would like to see in Waterlooville High Street.

04:55 We've been focusing on things like architecture, landscaping, land ownership and other events.

05:03 And we're inviting members of the public to come down, have your views heard.

05:07 We've got drop in sessions that last until 9 o'clock at night and we're here until Thursday

05:13 evening this week.

05:19 How long is the consultation process going on for before you draw up the first set of

05:23 plans?

05:25 So the first draft for the master plan will be prepared around about March time, in a

05:32 couple of months time.

05:34 And then we'll go out to formal consultation over the summer of 2024.

05:39 So when do you propose to have a finalised master plan that you can work with?

05:43 It'll be around about autumn 2024.

05:47 Tell me about Wellington Way and what your plans are for that.

05:52 So Wellington Way is owned by a company called Questmat.

05:55 They now have a planning permission in order to develop the site out.

05:59 There's going to be residential on the first floor and we're looking to encourage retailers

06:05 on the ground floor.

06:07 The council have launched a Waterlooville vacant shop scheme where entrepreneurs can

06:13 bid for money in order to be able to reactivate vacant shop units.

06:17 And we'll be doing a relaunch of that in the next couple of weeks.

06:22 [END]

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Waterlooville Festival of ideas

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