Last October, Havant Borough Council put out a ‘Call for sites’, an exercise to invite landowners and developers to nominate potential development land for the council to consider as it pulls together the latest version of the Local Plan. With the list of sites now published ahead of next week’s Planning Policy Committee meeting, we highlight a few of the more ‘interesting’ ones.
The familiar sites are all there, ‘Land north of Long Copse Lane‘, ‘Campdown‘, ‘Rook Farm‘, ‘Portsmouth Water HQ‘ and the vast swath of land at ‘Southleigh‘. The images below provide an index to the individual numbered sites, split into two views, the north of the borough with Cowplain in one, the south of the borough with Hayling Island in the other. Either click the arrows or swipe to the side on a touchscreen to see both views.
If you want to dive into the detail, you can find the full list here. Otherwise, read on for a summary of some of the more questionable highlights.
A few highlights
In no particular order – jump to one of interest in the following list or just browse them all.
- Site 24 – Littlepark House
- Site 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19 – Southleigh
- Site 36 – Southmere field
- Site 34 – Portsmouth Water HQ
- Sites 28, 29, 30 and 32 – West Street
- Site 60 – Portsdown Hill
- Sites 46 and 50 – Marina developments at Sinah Warren and Tournerbury Woods?
- Site 62 – South of Havant Road (‘Horses field’)
- Site 61 – Wade Lane
Site 24 – Littlepark House
That’s ASDA at the top of the image, with a lot of healthy woodland occupying the main part of the image. Now click the arrows or swipe the image and take a look at potential development site 24. That’s a fair number of trees to remove, but the timber business of the current owner, John Inkster Ltd., now has more family resource available so this one could start to move.
Site 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19 – Southleigh
Taken together, the ‘Emsworth gap’. Quite how this can ever be developed before the long overdue Southleigh Link road is in place remains a mystery to us all.
Site 36 – Southmere field
This one has come back into the picture since we last reported on it back in July 2021. With voter focus on Langstone for the foreseeable future, we’re probably unlikely to see anything progress here before the 2024 election-fest.
Site 34 – Portsmouth Water HQ
This hot potato has been left in the warming oven for well over a year now, while Portsmouth Water focuses on defending its reputation over the Havant Thicket reservoir and selling off less controversial parcels of its Havant estate to Barratts.
Sites 28, 29, 30 and 32 – West Street
Planning has been attempted on Site 30 before, turned down by HBC Planning, appealed by the developer and thrown out by the planning inspector in 2016. A planning application was submitted for Site 31 three years ago, for a three storey block of 20 one-bedroom flats, but that has not been progressed. Sites 28 and 29 reflect the motor dealership’s move from the site and when considered together, this block of four sites will be attractive for the total housing potential. If the Barratts Homes proposal on the former Portsmouth Water site at Palk Road goes ahead, then this combined site north of West Street will be one to watch.
[Update – 25-05-2023]
All four of these sites are owned by Richmond Motor Group with Site 30 already cleared, resurfaced and subject to a retrospective planning application for use as a car storage ‘as open car storage for a period of up to five years’. It’s probably a safe bet that this will be offered as a single large brownfield plot for housing when the market is favourable.
Site 60 – Portsdown Hill
The field below the David Wilson Homes (aka Barratts) ‘One-Eight-Zero’ estate at Bedhampton. Yes, the very field that DWH’s sales patter indicated would ‘never be built on’ when they were marketing their imaginatively-overpriced houses on Portsea View. Any houses built on this site would have a grandstand view over Harbour Place, the blot on the landscape which Barratt’s is still constructing on the late lamented Bedhampton strawberry fields. Let’s hope that the new HBC executive management team sets new planning policy targets for architectural design and sustainable development.
Sites 46 and 50 – Marina developments at Sinah Warren and Tournerbury Woods?
We can only assume that somebody’s considering a marina development at Sinah Warren, something that would attract a fair bit of focus from multiple Defra ‘non-departmental’ units including the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Marine Management Organisation. From an employment, commercial and tourism viewpoint, the idea has attractions but the traffic argument would be a hard one to win. Note that Site 50 (Tournerbury Woods) looks to be a similar initiative aimed at the eastern side of the island in Chichester Harbour, click the arrow or swipe to view.
Site 62 – South of Havant Road (‘Horses field’)
The field opposite the Brookfield Hotel heading into Emsworth. If you look at the Brook Gardens estate immediately to the right, you can get an idea of the number of homes that this site could bring.
Site 61 – Wade Lane
Perhaps the most difficult and contentious site on our patch. If the council really want to raise the voting turnout figures, this could be the ‘development opportunity’ to do just that. This is a rather better known horses’ field in the south of the borough. Half way down the mainland side of the Billy track, south of the A27 is a well known and well loved country walk down to the shore at Wade Lane. Swipe the image or click the arrow to see the scale of that development suggestion.
For full details of all the sites, take a look here.
If there’s one word of caution that should apply to all of these, it’s ‘Traffic’.
Havant Civic Society 
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