Repurposing a council owned car park and bus station into a gateway residential-led quarter linking the station with the town centre.

Following extensive consultation, JTP and Grainger, the UK’s largest listed residential landlord, co-created with the local community, a detailed planning application to turn a former Council owned car park and bus station into a new walkable neighbourhood in Newbury town centre. Located between Newbury railway station and Market Street, the completed development creates an attractive new gateway to Newbury with high-quality homes on a fine grain pedestrianised street network and additional parking capacity for Newbury station users.

The neighbourhood includes 232 residential homes, providing a mix of apartments, duplexes and houses, with 10,000 sqft of commercial space. In addition to the new homes and commercial space, these proposals provide over £8m of further improvements for Newbury by way of station car parking with additional capacity, replacement car parking for the Council offices, a new station plaza, new landscaped step free pedestrian routes through the site, replacement housing contribution and a new relocated bus station. Furthermore, the development will facilitate the payment of a community infrastructure levy (CIL) amounting to approximately £1.53m.

The proposals are anticipated to create more than 220 new full time jobs, and upon completion, anticipated to provide more than £4m of additional expenditure in local shops and services each year.

As part of its consultation, Grainger held a Community Planning Weekend in July 2015 to create a new vision for the site. More than 200 people took part in workshops and hands-on planning activities during the Community Planning Weekend process, and meetings were also held with local businesses, young people and community groups. In September 2015 Grainger also invited local people to the Market Street Community Forum for an update on the proposals which gave the community an opportunity to provide further feedback.

“We have been asked by colleagues whether a Community Planning Weekend is something we’d do on future development schemes and our answer has been a resounding yes.”