The Land & New Homes team at local independent estate agent, Homes is celebrating East Hampshire District councillors’ unanimous decision to grant planning to CALA Homes for the landmark redevelopment in Alton.
Work on the predominantly residential-led scheme is expected to take around four years and will start during Q1 in 2021. CALA Homes’ plans for the 12.8 acre site on Lower Turk Street in Alton’s town centre will include 220 new homes, five converted apartments within the listed Culverton House, a 70 bed care home, 58 assisted living homes, plus a multi-use community centre.
Eco conscious CALA will plant 180 trees and create a riverside children’s play area. They are also proposing a new landscaped River Wey Walk through the development. The new pedestrian and cycle route will run from the town centre to Kings Pond and Alton train station with a fast service (68 minutes) into London Waterloo, popular with commuters.
The market town, Alton’s landmark site, was once home to the Bass Brewery and latterly the Molson Coors’ brewery, who were reliant on beer production for Heineken until 2014 when the contract was not renewed. In 2015, Molson Coors closed the Alton brewery, closing the chapter on its hop industry heritage after 52 years of brewing.
Councillors praised CALA Homes’ efforts to make numerous amendments to its original proposal in response to the community’s concerns following a long period of public engagement.
CALA Homes’ Land and planning director, John Richards said: “This mixed-use development will play an important role in delivering much-needed new homes to the area, as well as providing affordable housing to address local need and all-important care facilities, as well as financial contributions via the section 106 agreement.”
“The development will be an exemplar for Alton and will regenerate and rejuvenate this long neglected part of the town centre.”
Peppe De Fazio, Homes director of the agent’s Land & New Homes department in Alton said: “Congratulations to our clients CALA Homes after a long challenging road to secure planning for what everyone regards as an iconic site in this town.”
Peppe commented: “Homes’ Land & New Homes department has built a strong working relationship with the CALA team to provide regular sales pricing and accommodation guidance to them throughout their lengthy planning process. We have had the privilege of working with them on a number of their developments including , Medstead Grange, Applegarth Vale in Grayshott, Elizabeth Meadows near Petersfield and the current Andlers Wood in Liss.”
Peppe added: “Over the last few years, hundreds of new homes have already been added to Alton’s local landscape, but the demand for further properties is huge as buyers still quite correctly consider Alton great value for money when they look at the cost of buying in neighbouring towns, such as Farnham and Winchester.
This exciting development will kick start the regeneration of Alton town centre, and provide further much needed properties to the home of our flagship Alton branch. These town centre homes will undoubtedly take the demand to a whole new level.”
Rob Price, joint managing director at Homes said: “CALA are an extremely popular housebuilder and therefore, the new homes which will be on offer here will undoubtedly be very popular.”
