First peek at brand new garden village

The building of the first homes in Hampshire's new garden village will be completed this month.

Welborne, north of Fareham, will have 6000 new homes and 15,000 residents when construction is completed.

The development on the Southwick estate has taken more than fifteen years to get through the planning stages but in the next few weeks, the first show home and welcome centre will finally open.

When completed, it will be the size of Petersfield, with four schools, a town and village centre but John Beresford, from Buckland Developments, said "green spaces are what makes this town different, we put the trees in first."

The masterplan includes Dashwood, an ancient woodland, which has been maintained from the original farmland site but also includes Welborne park which runs north to south and acts as a travel corridor.

750 homes will be built in the first five years, the first primary school and half of the village centre including a doctors surgery.

Construction of homes is expected at Welborne for the next 20-30 years.

Lead architect for the project, Ben Pentreath, has worked on Poundbury near Dorchester for the last fifteen years.

He says lessons learnt in that development are being used when designing Welborne.

One of the key things in creating a good community he believes is "pepper potted" social housing among the private residences, an idea promoted by King Charles.

"Crucially the housing is visibly indistinctive, so you and I wouldn't be able to tell whether that's a social house or a private house. There is no visual stigma at all and that's in contrast to much development from the 1970s and 1980s where we created a huge divide."

Everyone who lives in Welborne will become a member of the Welborne garden village trust (WGVT) and will have a stake in the community.

Residents pay an annual maintenance fee towards the upkeep of communal spaces, allotments and community halls and are able to call the estate office for any problems.

There is a book of "friendly" rules people sign up which the WGVT says protects the distinctive nature of the garden village.

"We don't want people coming in and ripping out the hedges and putting in a concrete driveway for cars so there is certain things people can and cannot do" said John Beresford.

"We've found people quite like to be governed, not strictly, but knowing no-one is going to do something next door or across the road which will change the whole area."

A new junction 10 on the M27 is being created as part of the development of Welborne.

During Christmas 2025, the motorway will be closed entirely for eight days to allow a new tunnel under to be installed.

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