The Hampshire Chronicle has reported that a new development of deluxe offices, homes, shops and car parking could start springing up next to Winchester Station early next year.
When completed it is expected to create 500 jobs and add £1m to the local economy.
http://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/11197571.Another_major_development_looming_in_Winchester/
Andover has various developments going on in and around the town at present with more planned. What would you develop in Andover and why? Here are a few suggestions:
- Telephone Exchange Building (Suffolk Road)
- Magistrates Court (Chantry Street)
- Chantry House (Chantry Centre)
- Bridge Street Mall (Bridge Street)
- Haydon Cars site (Salisbury Road)
- Southgate Cars site (Weyhill Road)
Maybe you’d turn the Telephone Exchange into flats to help housing or the Southgate Cars site into an out-of-town shopping mall to get more shops here.
Feel free to leave your ideas and suggestions (not rude ones please 🙂 ) in the comments section below.
I would love to see some flagship / landmark buildings to help develop Andover’s reputation as a modern, fast growing business town. I would demolish the town centre Sainsbury’s and Bridge Street Mall and build a modern apartment block with a new smaller format Sainsbury’s on the ground floor.
My personal aspirations regarding the former magistrates court are for it to converted to a Travelodge hotel. I envisage this being the catalist for the development of a plaza scheme. As a vision, It would be fantastic to see a central area in the town with an up and coming college, The Lights venue, a refurbished leisure centre, a hotel and some form of restaurant provision. I believe this would create a vibrant mixed use area where all people of the town would want to spend time.
Moving to the telephone exchange; this building is quite the eyesore and serves no real purpose other than being a souvenir of the large scale development Andover endured in the 60’s and 70’s. Again this is a prime location for a flagship building for the town. It would be great to see a mixed use office / residential scheme in place of this underused and dated building.
In the Weyhill Road area we have a strong local centre around the junction with The Drove, and the Portway Gardens area. It would be great to see the Haydon cars site used for the development of a similar local centre for residents in the Salisbury Road area.
I am sorry to say it but save for the ground floor, I would demolish Chantry House. It is an ugly, constrained and massively underused building that does nothing for the town centre at all. The vast majority of the building has been marketed for nearly two decades with no takers, and with little prospect of ever being brought in to use in a residential, retail or office capacity.
As for the former Southgate site; I think it would be great to use this site for out of town retail warehousing of which we arguably need much more of.