Early community engagement

The earliest planning stages for the new community at Manydown were taken forward by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council and Hampshire County Council as landowners. As set out in the principles for Manydown, these early proposals were shaped through active engagement with people and organisations across the town, borough and county.

Master planning

18 months of extensive community engagement took place to inform the development of an early masterplan, with the public feedback informing this in a number of ways including:

  • keeping a green space next to Roman Road
  • providing open space within a five minute walk of homes
  • having fewer but larger and more usable green open spaces
  • keeping a landscape edge along Worting Road
  • locating a primary and secondary school together
  • creating market squares
  • having a lower number of homes in visually sensitive areas
  • creating areas with different characters and architectural approaches.

 

 

A woman and two children pointing at a display board with information about updates to the outline planning application for the northern part of Manydown.

Updates to early planning proposals

Residents were able to submit comments on the planning proposals directly to the project team, as well as during four periods of consultation by the local planning authority in March 2017, July 2018, and January and December 2019.

 

Young opinions

Every new building development attracts interest and comments from local residents. It is very important that young people get a chance to have a say as they are the generation that are most likely to set up homes and business in a new development.

This was the basis for workshops which started in January 2016 with 30 pupils from eight local schools. The initial three workshops showed that this was a great way to find out what young people wanted from the new development on the northern part of Manydown.

Engaging with pupils in primary and secondary schools around the borough, a series of workshops took place in January 2016 focused on understanding young people’s views on ‘what makes a great place’.

Young people between the ages of 11 and 18 spent the week working at local architecture practice Ayre Chamberlain Gaunt, based in Basing View.

In August 2019, seven to 18-year-old Buckskin and Bishops Green residents took part in sessions to think about some of the features they would like for the 250-acre countryside park while considering the themes of wildlife and landscape, sustainability and connected and healthy communities.