Engaging communities and celebrating local heritage for Central Winchester Regeneration

We were pleased to welcome more than 170 residents, local businesses and stakeholders to our latest engagement event, hosted in Winchester city centre to support our Central Winchester Regeneration (CWR) project.  

CWR is a landmark scheme set to provide a new, vibrant creative quarter for the city, offering flexible work and creative spaces, as well as food and drink offerings, plenty of public spaces and tenure diverse homes.

Shaping a thriving city quarter

Our latest engagement events were designed to provide an open and collaborative space for the local community to share their thoughts, ask questions, and discuss what matters most to them as we develop plans to breathe new life into the city quarter. They also offered an opportunity for people to meet the igloo project team, alongside partners including Winchester City Council and the award‑winning architectural team.

We created a series of exhibition boards that brought the project to life, featuring original artist sketches and drawings to illustrate the development journey so far. These boards set out our vision for transforming the area and showcased the progress we’ve made to date, including the latest artist CGI impressions of what the scheme could look like, evolved transport routes, and visual landscaping and green spaces.

Focusing on placemaking and sustainability

Our early concepts for the scheme include approximately 6,000 sq ft of flexible commercial and creative workspaces, new food and drink destinations, and an improved public realm with accessible green spaces. 250 tenure-diverse homes have been designed to suit people at all stages of life, helping to support a vibrant and inclusive new community as the area evolves.

In Winchester, and across our wider project portfolio, we’re creating new neighbourhoods shaped directly by local communities and guided by our Footprint® process. We work closely with partners, stakeholders and residents to ensure we build thriving places across the UK that put People, Place and Planet at the centre.  

Matt Woolgar, development director at igloo, said: “The Central Winchester Regeneration represents a rare opportunity to reshape a significant part of the city centre in a way that respects and celebrates its heritage while creating new spaces for people to live, work and spend time.

“Our focus is on delivering a high-quality design that will help breathe new energy to this part of the city. Engagement sessions like these are an important part of ensuring those proposals are informed by the people who know Winchester best.

“The strong turnout and constructive feedback mark an important step as we move into the next phase of engagement, and we look forward to progressing the project further in collaboration with Winchester City Council.”

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