New Town Centre Strategy for Basingstoke
11th February 2021
With high streets across the UK continuing to experience the effects of changes in shopping habits and the COVID-19 pandemic adding enormous new pressures on retailers, it is vital that as a council we take a lead in shaping the future of our own town centre to ensure it remains a top shopping and leisure destination that attracts people and is a place for residents to live and work. Without a strong, vibrant town centre the borough as a whole will suffer.
Although our town centre has had success in attracting investment and new retailers in recent years, the threats above mean we must work with our partners and attract investment to strengthen our offer and make changes to ensure our town meets evolving customer expectations while building on our key strengths.
This is also a key part of our work to ensure the borough’s economic recovery from the pandemic and help us meet our challenging climate emergency targets.
To help us deal with the challenges we face we have brought together a leading team of experts in the future of town centres led by JLL, recently appointed as the borough’s property advisers, Hemingway Design, and Master Planners, Allies and Morrison, to help us shape an ambitious strategy for the town centre area. Because of the speed and significance of the changes affecting our town centre it is necessary to work quickly to complete the project. We aim to seek council approval for a new masterplan by the end of 2021.
Officers and consultants will be carrying out an in-depth analysis of the town centre in its widest sense as well as speaking with councillors, key partners, residents and businesses to draw upon their experiences and ideas to develop a new masterplan for our town centre. A very clear requirement is that it should be a deliverable plan able to attract substantial additional investment into the town.
Hemingway Design will be commencing a survey from Monday (15 February) to understand changing customer behaviour and to understand what residents and key stakeholders want to see in the town centre in future years.
Officers and the project team will be working to the following outline programme:
We will supply regular updates to councillors and plan a councillor briefing in June on the findings of the survey
Although our town centre has had success in attracting investment and new retailers in recent years, the threats above mean we must work with our partners and attract investment to strengthen our offer and make changes to ensure our town meets evolving customer expectations while building on our key strengths.
This is also a key part of our work to ensure the borough’s economic recovery from the pandemic and help us meet our challenging climate emergency targets.
To help us deal with the challenges we face we have brought together a leading team of experts in the future of town centres led by JLL, recently appointed as the borough’s property advisers, Hemingway Design, and Master Planners, Allies and Morrison, to help us shape an ambitious strategy for the town centre area. Because of the speed and significance of the changes affecting our town centre it is necessary to work quickly to complete the project. We aim to seek council approval for a new masterplan by the end of 2021.
Officers and consultants will be carrying out an in-depth analysis of the town centre in its widest sense as well as speaking with councillors, key partners, residents and businesses to draw upon their experiences and ideas to develop a new masterplan for our town centre. A very clear requirement is that it should be a deliverable plan able to attract substantial additional investment into the town.
Hemingway Design will be commencing a survey from Monday (15 February) to understand changing customer behaviour and to understand what residents and key stakeholders want to see in the town centre in future years.
Officers and the project team will be working to the following outline programme:
- Public engagement – 15 February to 19 March 2021
- Visioning work and assessing engagement feedback – 20 March to 7 April 2021
- Develop vision and masterplan – March to June 2021
- Public engagement on vision and masterplanning – June to July 2021
- Develop masterplan options – July to September 2021
- Draft masterplan – September to November 2021.
We will supply regular updates to councillors and plan a councillor briefing in June on the findings of the survey