Our Vision is to deliver a new and thriving low carbon neighbourhood with the community at its heart. It will be a place with a variety of homes, places to work, play and meet others, and a community with a focus on health and well-being.
It will be a welcoming and sensitively designed environment, with a strong sense of identity that will allow nature and landscape to form an integral part of the development, creating a positive landscape setting to the historic City of Winchester.
Our vision is underpinned by our eight core values.
Net Zero Ready
We are in the middle of a Climate Emergency. Our vision for Manor Parks complements the City Council’s 2030 Net Zero Carbon Ambition. We will meet the proposed Future Homes Standard to eliminate fossil fuel use for heating and hot water, and reduce regulated emissions from homes.
The emissions from the new community will diminish over time as the grid is decarbonised, with a national ambition to significantly decarbonise our electricity supply by 2030.
This is how we’re planning for a low carbon future:
- Low carbon homes which prioritise energy efficiency
- A fabric-first approach to keep homes warm and reduce energy bills
- Enhanced tree planting to capture and store carbon
- Electric vehicle charging points for all homes
- Air source heat pumps to provide efficient, fossil fuel free heating and hot water
Nature
The new community for Winchester will deliver a generous space, enriched in biodiversity, on a site which is currently intensively managed and sterile across many areas.
Biodiversity and green infrastructure will be a fundamental part of the identity for the development, creating a positive setting to Winchester. Spaces will be multi-functional, where appropriate, providing opportunities for play, recreation, movement, drainage, food growing and wildlife.
This is how we’re making Manor Parks a home to wildlife:
- Around half of the site will be kept as green space, including formal sports provision alongside more informal spaces
- Retention of woodland and new planting
- New wildflower meadows
- New habitats for wildlife will be created within the network of green infrastructure
- Wildlife friendly elements to the design of the homes, including bat boxes, bird houses and swift bricks
Conserving Heritage
The new community will form an extension to the existing city, where it would make a positive contribution to the future housing needs for Winchester.
The development will conserve the setting of on-site listed buildings which will form a new heart for new and existing communities. A gateway will be created to enhance the setting of existing heritage features and create a well- defined green city edge.
This is how Manor Parks will protect Winchester’s heritage:
- Establish a new gateway to the historic city of Winchester, including an attractive landscaped edge
- Build on the historic character of Winchester by establishing a strong relationship between urban form and landscape
- Respect the setting of Pitt
- Include key architectural styles and features of existing buildings to establish a harmonious identity
- Utilise existing heritage assets as attractive placemaking features
- Reuse existing buildings used as part of the golf course as shared facilities to form a heart to the new community
Homes for All
Winchester is amongst the UK’s least affordable areas, with prices well above regional averages. In 2024, a home in Winchester cost more than 12 times average earning. In the year to June 2024, Winchester house prices continued to increase by 3.3% compared to falls in Hampshire, the South-east and England of -2.2%, -2.3% and -1.0% respectively.
This is how Manor Parks will deliver Homes for All:
- The new community will incorporate up to 1,200 new homes
- The homes will be provided at a range of tenures, design, scale and density
- 40% of the homes will be affordable, in line with council policy
- We are committed to involving the local community in the design and placemaking of the community
- Providing adaptable homes, to allow for home-working and access for all, including those with disabilities
A Place to Live Well
Central to all our values is supporting the delivery of a healthy, vibrant and cohesive community. We will do this by facilitating healthy independent living which will in turn reduce the demand on the NHS.
This is how Manor Parks will create an environment for Living Well:
- Providing homes in an area of excellent air quality, with low emissions
- Encourage active lifestyles and travel for all. This will build social cohesion, improving both mental and physical health
- Embed design features into the homes which allow for long and healthy living, to enable residents to maintain environmental, social and support networks for longer
- Create accessible environments for all, responding to level changes in an appropriate way and reducing obstacles from both homes and public spaces
- Include sport and recreation facilities throughout the site, through the creation of play spaces, formal sports facilities
- Potential for a health care uses which could incorporate a GP, pharmacy and/or dental surgery
Sustainable and Active Travel
Winchester’s new community unlocks a unique opportunity to create a new place designed around a bus-first approach, with “20-Minute Neighbourhood Principles” at their heart. This means that the major needs of the residents can be found within 15 minutes’ walk or bike ride of their homes, including shops, workplaces, shops, doctors and schools.
Encouraging active travel wherever possible is in line with council policy and will help to meet the wider objective of achieving net zero carbon.
This is how Manor Parks will achieve its Sustainable and Active Travel objectives:
- 20-Minute Neighbourhood Principles will ensure quick access to facilities and services within walking and cycling distance
- Sustainable transport will be provided with high frequency of bus services to the city centre
- Deliver a “Mobility Hub” – a facility which will offer a variety of transport methods, including car club, e-cycle hire and more
- Around 5km of dedicated cycle routes – on and off road
- Around 2km of recreational footpaths across the site
Vibrant Local Economy
Manor Parks will provide for a range of uses to create a thriving community and increase local economic activity.
At the heart of the development will be a mixed-use local centre with retail, healthcare uses and a mobility hub. A multi use community facility will be provided in the retained clubhouse which could include meeting spaces for local groups, a café and other facilities.
This is how we will create a Vibrant Local Economy at Manor Parks:
- 280 permanent jobs including home working, office, medical, retail, food and primary school.
- Provide space to support remote workers
- c.£6 million of residential expenditure retained in Winchester.
- £10 million+ estimated Community Infrastructure Levy.
- c.£16.1 million additional gross value added per annum associated with additional jobs.
- 90 average construction jobs per year.
Single Ownership for Delivery
As the entire site is under the sole ownership of Bloor Homes, without any other parties involved, delivery and control over quality can be controlled.
Bloor Homes is the largest privately-owned builder of new homes in the UK, with over 60 years of experience in creating new communities.
A key underpinning to all that we do at Bloor is to create sustainable places where people can live, work and play, whilst at the same time having a positive impact on the environment and addressing the Climate Crisis.
Find out more about Bloor Homes by visiting our website.
Homes for Nature
Bloor Homes has committed to the Homes For Nature initiative, run by the independent Future Homes Hub. This commitment means improved wildlife habitat will be provided as part of the scheme, including a bird-nesting brick or box for every home built; hedgehog highways built as standard, and a range of other features including bat roosts and hibernacula (places for animals to hibernate in winter).
