Whitchurch Town Centre Regeneration Project

The Problem

5 empty shops

peeling paint

cluttered, visually inharmonious signage

absentee landlords

2023: Whitchurch Town Centre Conservation Area looked less than its best.

In November 2023, we carried out a community survey to gauge resident perceptions about the current state of Whitchurch Town Centre, and this attracted a very compelling 819 responses.

The survey responses clearly showed that the poor and declining state of the Town Centre Conservation Area was a critical issue for local residents and that the heritage buildings and shopfronts were not looking as good as they could be, and undermining the perception of our rural market town for those who live, work and visit Whitchurch.

This was the starting point for what ultimately became a proactive and innovative two-year long project which sought to uplift Whitchurch and create a unified, more aspirational visual appearance by enhancing the heritage infrastructure of the Town Centre Conservation Area.

In 2024 we were awarded funding and our project formally concluded in March 2026.

The Solution

Enter: a handful of local volunteers.

No big budget. No big team.

Just refused to give up.

Whitchurch Conservation Group sourced funding and project managed the Whitchurch Town Regeneration Project.

Funding for the project was critical – our project was funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and the Rural England Prosperity Fund. We also sourced additional funding from freeholders as well as generous contributions from Foreman Homes, Vivid Housing and Greenham Trust.

We worked closely with the BDBC Conservation Officer, Planning and Enforcement teams, local businesses, architects, and tradespeople to create a much-needed transformation in the Town Centre Conservation Area.

Our aim was to improve the tired paintwork and shopfront signage and create a more cohesive backdrop to enhance the heritage buildings and of course to make the most of the beautiful flowers nurtured by the award-winning Whitchurch in Bloom team (*also awarded funding through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund)

Lots of unhelpful curveballs and obstacles along the way

There were plenty of obstacles as we progressed, as well as a few unwelcome and unforeseen curveballs. All in, the project has taken two years to deliver from conception to completion. We got there.

Scaffolding permits proved difficult to initially obtain and our project nearly failed had it not been for the support of our local County Councillor (Cllr Tom Thacker) and MP (The Right Hon Kit Malthouse MP) helping us to find a way to address this with Hampshire Highways.

The planning bureaucracy was immense and incredibly complicated: we worked closely with our fantastic BDBC Conservation Officer to plough our way through 9 planning permissions for hanging signs advertisement consents and 1 listed building consent. Her patience and professionalism was invaluable. Our Borough councillor (Cllr Chloe Ashfield) was always hugely supportive.

We worked closely with the BDBC Enforcement team to effect 1 legal enforcement to remove an illegal shopfront installed in the place of a heritage shopfront. We were grateful for their support and understanding of how important this shopfront reinstatement was to the entire town regeneration project, and to the overall visual consistency.

Fortunately, we also managed to find a successful resolution to this difficult situation by sourcing additional funding elsewhere to fund the architectural plans as well as installation of timber heritage signage fascia with traditional signwriting in place of the unauthorised aluminium shopfront.

Throughout the entire project we had the support of our hugely helpful and supportive BDBC Grant Officers, without whose help and practical support none of this would have been possible. It’s a huge achievement – thank you BDBC.

The Work

aiming for visual ‘bang for buck’….

This was not a straightforward process, by any means, involving several stakeholders, and we deployed the funding with the aim of achieving most visual ‘bang for buck’ in the Town Centre Conservation Area.

We worked closely with architects and designers to create a cohesive visual feel and style as well as the individual businesses whose own brand palettes provided the guiding backbone, using Farrow & Ball and Little Greene heritage paint colours.

We commissioned and paid local tradespeople whose effort and hard work brought our transformation to life.

We are especially grateful to Tony at Tibbotts Signwriting, whose traditional signwriting has provided a consistent underpinning and visual consistency to our project.

We are incredibly grateful to the local Whitchurch community groups who stepped up to provide the support we needed: Whitchurch in Bloom, Whitchurch Walkers are Welcome, Whitchurch Association, Whitchurch History Society (not forgetting the Whitchurch W.I !)

Thank you to everyone who contributed positively to our project, not least the individual businesses. You’ve been amazing.

We would especially like to acknowledge the huge investment made by Arkells in the White Hart building and to the Keelans for their financial commitment to the structural overhaul and rejuvenation of 1, Church St. Your buildings are the visual lynchpins of the Town Centre Conservation Area; and we are so pleased to have been able to coordinate the wider transformation. The result is so much more than we could have hoped for.

Please do enjoy the transformation video which hopefully gives a feel for the monumental scale of impact the funding has achieved.