Welborne Garden Village in Hampshire has taken another step forward after planning was granted for the development’s village centre. 

Fareham Borough Council’s planning committee has approved the plans for the Welborne Village Centre and construction is expected to start this autumn. 

The centre will be the initial hub of the Welborne community and will provide essential amenities to residents and neighbours from an early stage of the development. 

These will include a two-form entry primary school, a GP surgery and pharmacy, a nursery, a pub/hotel, cafes, shops and sports facilities.

In line with Welborne’s ‘local first’ supplier policy, the aim is to attract local and regional retailers and hospitality businesses to the centre, with favourable rents being offered to the first occupants pre-footfall.

The Village Centre will also incorporate some homes, consisting of a mix of houses and apartments, with 14 affordable units. 

It will be built partly by Buckland Development in the style of a traditional Hampshire market town and is due to be completed by early 2027, as part of the first phase of Welborne. 

The buildings will be heated and cooled by a low carbon water source heat network. The area will also benefit from up to one gigabit superfast broadband inside and outside, as well as EV charging points. 

The centre will be a short walk from two new parks – Welborne Park and Dashwood Park - as well as new public access to 38 hectares of the nearby Dashwood ancient woodland.  

Mark Thistlethwayte, chairman of Buckland Group, said: “In designing the Welborne Village Centre, we are aiming to create a community hub right from the start, with all the essential amenities residents will need within a beautiful setting. 

“For the design, we have drawn architectural inspiration from popular Hampshire market towns like Alresford and Stockbridge.”

As the Welborne community grows over the next decade, this initial village centre will be complemented by a larger district centre providing all the necessary services for residents within walking distance. 

There will also be two further new primary schools and one secondary. 

The Village Centre planning approval follows the approval earlier this year of the first wave of 474 homes, of which the first few are already in the advanced stages of construction.