O’Flynn Group is the company putting forward these proposals. We are a development business involved in masterplanning, building and managing high quality properties and places in the UK and Ireland. O’Flynn Group is working in partnership with the landowners of the wider Sutton Scotney Estate (upon which the area is located) and will act as the master developer for the delivery of the new community. You can view O’Flynn Group’s website here: http://oflynngroup.com/

O’Flynn Group will act as the master developer for the development. This means we will oversee the delivery of the development from the outset right through to completion; we’re in it for the long-term and will have a stake in seeing a successful place delivered. In the early stages we will put in place the necessary planning and delivery consents, jointly establishing the quality kitemarks that the new settlement will meet alongside the local community and the Council. We will also be responsible for putting in place funding and delivering infrastructure, such as roads, paths, utilities, drainage, community facilities and parks to serve the different parts of the new community. We will work with other builders to then deliver new homes, workshops, offices, shops and spaces on different parcels of land.

O’Flynn Group has more than 40 years’ experience in development. We have built and managed developments in the housing, commercial, retail, industrial and student accommodation sectors and our UK experience extends from Southampton to Edinburgh. We have a track record for sensitive and well-designed developments using bespoke architecture, differing from the standard style used by many housebuilders. O’Flynn Group has assembled a team of industry-leading professional consultants to advise and support on the proposals.

We are proposing a new community on the land around Micheldever Station. Centred on the train station itself, our proposals include a new town centre with shops and community facilities, a business park, one secondary school and three primary schools and a wide range of new homes within new neighbourhoods. This would be set within extensive parkland and retained farmland, with enhanced accessibility to the area through new walking and cycle routes, new roads and improvements at the station.

Once complete Micheldever Station will be the second largest settlement in the District and similar in size to other Hampshire market towns such as Petersfield or Ringwood, which successfully support a wide range of services and facilities. The proposed area is 540 hectares (1,300 acres) but not all of this will be built on; almost half will be kept as green space for wildlife and recreation, ponds/lakes for managing water or farmland to knit the area into its surrounds. The proposals will provide up to 6,000 new homes, space for businesses, four schools, a main town centre and two smaller local centres, creating up to 5,000 jobs within the new community.

Our vision is that Micheldever Station will be a place that people can enjoy living in, working in and visiting. We want it to be an exemplar of design, with neighbourhoods that are distinctive in character, places that sit well within the green landscape and buildings that are beautiful. But, we’re only at an early stage with lots of options for precisely how the homes, buildings and open space could look through use of different materials, styles, layouts and designs. We’re open to thinking differently and will engage with local people, and prospective residents, on how they would like the new community to look and feel.

We know the concept of growing a new settlement on land around the station is not a new one. The area has been considered as a location to accommodate growth at various points over the past three decades. Each time other options have been preferred, focussing growth on expanding existing towns and urban area, including most recently at Barton Farm identified through the Local Plan in 2013. We think a different approach is now appropriate and we think that Micheldever Station remains – as it always has been – a suitable option for accommodating growth needs in a sustainable manner.

The Sutton Scotney Estate is now in new ownership and has a new development team, unconnected to previous proposals in the 2000’s and early 2010’s. With fresh perspective our approach seeks to reject the mistakes of the past. Our new proposal: 1. Is smaller and more sympathetic, being less than half the size of previous proposals for up to 12,500 homes. 2. Provides architectural, landscape and placemaking proposal that positively responds to the intrinsic character and beauty of the area. 3. Now fits with national planning priorities, with new settlements and garden villages being widely supported as a way of meeting increasing housing needs whilst delivering necessary infrastructure. 4. Genuinely responds to climate change challenges facing the area by embedding sustainable and low-carbon principles at the heart of the design, rather than as an ‘eco’ bolt-on. Our proposals have carefully considered past criticisms and we would work with the local community and the Council to plan and bring forward any development.

Yes, growth of this size is required to meet the needs of local people, families and businesses over the next 20+ years. The area needs new homes for people to live affordably; average house prices are now more than 12 times average local earnings whilst the Council’s affordable housing waiting list is more than 1,600 households. Winchester has a sustained housing need which is not diminishing. Government indicates the area needs to build more than 660 homes each year just to meet the District’s needs, but there has also been agreement Winchester will need to help accommodate unmet housing needs from the constrained areas of South Hampshire. There are options for how Winchester City Council could meet the development needs that exist. For example, through more extensions to Winchester or lots of sites throughout the smaller towns and villages. But we think providing for needs in one comprehensively planned new community at Micheldever Station, with close access to a railway station and with all the supporting infrastructure provided alongside, is the best way for Winchester City Council to meet its development needs.

We envisage building Micheldever Station will take approximately 25 years. A phased approach will mean we can ensure vital infrastructure and services, such as schools, shops and employment can be put in place early to help foster a community and avoid placing pressures on existing services elsewhere. In total approximately 3,000 homes, half of the new settlement, could be delivered by the 2036 horizon of Winchester’s new Local Plan, with the remainder meeting longer term development needs in a planned way.

A varied housing mix will be provided, responding flexibly to the needs that arise at different points over the period the new community is being built. Small and large homes for sale, including for first-time buyers, couples, families and down-sizers, will be complemented by a range of different types and tenures of housing. Retirement homes, care homes, private rented housing, plots for people wishing to design or build their own homes, live/work homes, social and affordable rented and shared ownership properties will all be available. 40% of the homes will be classified as affordable, meaning that they will meet Government definitions for such homes and be available to local people to access at rates below market value.

Yes, we want to deliver much more than just new homes. Our proposals include a range of services and facilities that will support the new community, such as schools, nurseries, health centres, local shops and an enhanced railway station, all supporting new jobs. Alongside this employment space in business park areas will be provided, with flexible, high quality spaces available for both large companies and small start-ups, to help meet business needs in the area and provide local working opportunities. We estimate that Micheldever Station will host approximately 5,000 new workplace jobs once complete. In addition, we want to help people work flexibly. Super-fast broadband, home styles with space for home offices or home workshops and co-working business units will enable people to work at home or locally to home.

No. We are promoting the area to Winchester City Council as a potential allocation to be contained within their new Local Plan. The Council can choose to formally identify the area as one for growth within its Local Plan, following public consultation, which would then be independently examined by a Government appointed inspector. Any planning application would come after this Local Plan process.

Our proposals place sustainability and climate change at the forefront of our approach and the development will be zero carbon. The railway station at the heart of the community is unique, providing opportunities for sustainable travel. At the local level walking and cycling routes, the design of places, the mix of uses, the location of key facilities and provision of high-quality bus routes will all reduce the need to travel and promote non-car modes of travel. The design and construction of buildings will embed high energy-efficiency and low utilities demand throughout the new settlement.

The settlement will contain a full range of local services, including shops, schools, doctors’ surgeries and leisure facilities. It will also provide around 5,000 employment opportunities accessible to local residents. These will reduce the need to travel by car. To facilitate movement within the settlement, an extensive network of pedestrian and cycle routes will be provided creating direct and short links between where residents live and the services. This will be supplemented by a dockless cycle hire scheme. Local demand-responsive bus routes will also be provided to facilitate travel around the development. As part of the proposals, Micheldever station will be improved. Demand for rail travel from Micheldever will increase substantially as the new settlement is built out and based upon experience at similar locations, more frequent trains will stop at the station. New limited-stop bus routes will also be provided towards Winchester, Basingstoke and Andover. As a result, a settlement of the size proposed will encourage much less car use per dwelling than a conventional smaller urban extension without such extensive local services and without a station at its heart.

A zero carbon development will be achieved by adopting a range of available measures. Homes and buildings will be designed to be highly energy efficient and with low utilities demand, using measures such as high levels of insulation, efficient glazing and materials, use of heat pumps for heating with gas-less new homes, managing water use and providing solar panels as part of all buildings. This will contribute to significantly reducing the carbon footprint of buildings’ use and occupation. Micheldever Station will be built over 25 years and as more efficient, smart and low carbon technology and practices become available and cost effective, new buildings and homes at Micheldever Station will be built to be truly zero carbon. Current building regulations do not require homes in England to be zero carbon and many developments that currently achieve ‘zero carbon’ do so by offsetting (paying for solutions elsewhere) rather than by seeking to achieve it at source in the design and occupation of buildings. We want to make Micheldever Station a zero carbon place at the local level over the long term. In late 2019 Government consulted on proposals to uplift building regulation energy efficiency standards (known as Part L requirements) in 2020. This is a first step towards achieving Government’s ‘Future Homes Standard’ by 2025, which would see new homes built have 75-80% less carbon dioxide emissions than under today’s regulations and see homes have the potential to become zero carbon without further adaptation as the electricity grid becomes decarbonised. Government has identified the need for full decarbonisation of buildings by 2050, and we aspire to beat Government targets by achieving this at Micheldever Station much earlier.

Yes. We have developed a strategy by which our proposed development can achieve nitrate neutrality; meaning our development will not lead to additional nitrogen being released into watercourses and could lead to net additional benefits. The details of this strategy can be viewed in our separate factsheet. Achieving nitrate neutrality is important for protecting designated wildlife habitats in the Solent area and we consider Micheldever Station provides a good way to deliver growth to meet development needs whilst mitigating any effects on such internationally important designations.

Network Rail are providing extra tracks and a new platform at Woking station by 2025. This will enable more trains to run on the line through Micheldever. Shorter trains can be enhanced to 10- or 12-car formations to increase the number of passengers which can be carried. These measures would increase the capacity of trains running through or stopping at Micheldever Station, reducing the requirement to stand at busy times. From discussions with the rail operators and analysis of the current timetable, more trains currently passing through Micheldever would stop at the station in response to additional passenger demand generated by the new settlement. This will provide more frequent train services at Micheldever Station, improving passenger access.

The development proposes to fund a range of physical improvements to the station including: - replacing the current subway by a new footbridge - providing lifts to the new footbridge to help passengers with mobility difficulties, pushchairs and/or luggage - lengthening the island platform to accommodate 12-car trains with provision of new passenger shelters - providing new ticket facilities on the east side of the station - providing extensive cycle parking on both sides of the station - providing interchange with local bus services - improving facilities for drop-off and taxis - providing new station car parking on the west side of the station to discourage overflow parking on surrounding roads.

The location of the new community at Micheldever Station is proposed due to its accessibility to the national rail network and the ability to promote more sustainable options for residents and employees. This will assist in reducing the level of traffic accessing the site by car in parallel with the Garden Towns approach of delivering a mixed-use scheme which will provide educational, employment and local retail on the site to reduce the need to travel off site. Assessments are being carried out to quantify the potential highways and transport implications of the proposal. The key emphasis is on providing all necessary services on site and thereby reducing the number of trips to the surrounding areas. High quality public transport provision will ensure that those trips leaving the site will use modes other than the car as much as possible. A mitigation strategy will address the remaining vehicular trips from and to the development. This will be done in tandem with the Travel planning for the development which will be considered through the Local Plan process.

The location of the new community at Micheldever Station is proposed due to its accessibility to the national rail network and the ability to promote more sustainable options for residents and employees. This will assist in reducing the level of traffic accessing the area by car in parallel with the Garden Towns approach of delivering a mixed-use place which will provide schools, employment and local retail within the community to reduce the need to travel elsewhere. Assessments are being carried out to quantify the potential highways and transport implications of the proposal. The key emphasis is on providing all necessary services within the new community and thereby reducing the number of trips to the surrounding areas. High quality public transport provision will ensure that those trips leaving Micheldever Station will use modes other than the car as much as possible. A mitigation strategy will address the remaining vehicular trips from and to the development. This will be done in tandem with the Travel planning for the development which will be considered through the Local Plan process.

Our proposals are of such a size that we can deliver a comprehensive range of community facilities to support the new settlement. Some community facilities will be put in place upfront, whilst others will be introduced as the community grows and there is enough demand to support them. Beyond the existing Dove Inn public house, we know there are few community facilities in the immediate area. To address this, we will accelerate delivery of key services to allow residents to have immediate access to a new primary school, nursery, local shop and multi-use community space. Facilities such as a new GP surgery, sports facilities and a secondary school will also be put in place early as the new community expands.

As part of the new development we will build three new primary schools and one new secondary school, providing enough pupil places for all children living in the new community and in nearby villages. The nearest existing primary school – Micheldever C of E primary school – is already nearly full and is not in walking distance, therefore we would bring forward a new primary school alongside the first new homes. The nearest secondary schools are in Whitchurch, Andover, Basingstoke and Winchester, all a bus-ride away. Whilst some have existing space for new pupils in the short term, a new secondary school will be built in a phased manner to provide a local school for older children.

The delivery of services to the area are being integrated within the overarching sustainability of the new community. This will include reducing the potential demand for utilities through design, use of good building practices, and recycling and re-using of water. Once this level of demand has been reduced, then we are addressing the ability to meet demand within the new community itself for example through on-site generation and then how we will deliver the anticipated capacity improvements in discussions with the utility providers. The balance of demand for each of the services will be assessed to address the sustainable credentials of the new community.

There have been initial discussions with Southern Water on the options to provide the sewage treatment capacity to meet the community’s requirements. These have included providing a facility as part of the proposals or pumping the waste to other local facilities. The initial view is that the option of delivering an on-site facility will be taken forward and assessed in more detail. There are suitable locations within the Micheldever Station area where such a facility could be placed.