Council rejects new settlements

Meadow by Victoria Thompson

Winchester City Council has rejected new settlements as a way to meet Winchester’s housing need over the next 20 years.

In response to the Council’s consultation earlier this year on how Winchester should meet the housing target that the government has set for our District, hundreds of people from across the District told the Council in no uncertain terms that Option 3, one or more large new settlements in the countryside, was the worst option and should be rejected. The limited support that there was for Option 3 came mainly from those promoting Micheldever Station and ‘Royaldown’.

The overwhelming opposition to Option 3 means the Council is now taking forward a development strategy for the new Local Plan that rejects new settlements.

We would like to thank the many supporters who answered our appeal earlier this year to oppose Option 3. Your efforts have meant that the threat of a new town at Micheldever is greatly diminished.

 Not only has the Council rejected new settlements generally, but it had this to say about Micheldever new town:

“The current situation would suggest the need to focus development on existing settlements to support town and local centres, encourage brownfield development and reduce the need to travel, not to start a new focus of development in an undeveloped rural location. The remaining site actively being promoted [now that ‘Royaldown’ has been withdrawn], at Micheldever Station, is also on the edge of the district away from the main areas of settlement (and therefore housing need) and would create a new centre for development in a relatively undeveloped and unspoilt tract of countryside between Winchester and Basingstoke.”

Following the total rejection of Option 3 by residents across Winchester District, our local community and now the Council, the Dever Society is calling on the landowner, John Magnier, and his developer O’Flynn Group, to abandon the Micheldever new town scheme.

Dever Society chairman, Tessa Robertson, said, “We’re delighted, if unsurprised, about the scale of rejection for a new town in the district. The Council has rightly said that a new town at Micheldever is the wrong scheme for the district and is neither wanted nor needed. With the withdrawal of ‘Royaldown’, Micheldever is the only remaining large new town still being promoted in Winchester District. Thirty years after the new town was first proposed, it has once again been rejected in no uncertain terms. The landowner and his developer should put the scheme out of its misery and abandon it for once and for all.”