Terrified residents could be forced out of their homes to make way for huge tower blocks in a bid to meet Labour‘s target of 1.5 million new houses by 2030. The low-income neighbourhood of Buckskin and South Ham in west Basingstoke is filled with young families, retirees and residents with disabilities and health issues, many of whom own their properties outright and have lived in the area for generations. A new “regeneration” scheme proposed by the housing association Sovereign Network Group (SNG), has prescribed the area as “low density”. They have also unveiled computer-generated plans for a reimagined district packed with five-storey blocks of flats.

The renderings, displaying huge tower blocks in the place of residents’ “forever homes”, have caused panic among those living in the area where property prices averaged £332,992 over the last year. The apparent bid to demolish existing homes and cram as many buildings as possible in the 4,000-property patch has been accompanied by a refusal from SNG to confirm details, but Basingstoke and Deane Council hasn’t ruled out issuing Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPO) to Buckskin and South Ham residents “as a last resort”.

It comes as Deputy Prime Minister and Angela Rayner‘s Planning and Infrastructure Bill continues to move through Parliament. The bill legislates reduced opportunities for developments to be challenged on legal grounds, cuts environmental red tape, and delegates more decisions to planning officers rather than committees to tackle the UK’s housing shortage.

Alex Comfort, 29, who owns a house with her husband in Cairngorm Close, Buckskin, said: “One report we’ve seen suggested that SNG wants to build an absolute minimum of 200 extra homes. But we’re also being told that they can’t confirm whether our houses will be demolished or not. We didn’t want to, but we put our house on the market a few weeks ago, just to see what we could get. We don’t want to move. My husband and I have just had a baby, and this was supposed to be our family home.”

“It just doesn’t make sense to me that they’re describing this as a regeneration for the benefit of the community. If we all have to move, there’ll be no one here. Who is the community they’re doing this for?” she added. “It’s heartbreaking because we’ve spent so much time and money on renovating our house, but even if it isn’t demolished, we could end up living on a building site. I don’t want to expose my baby to that. This is a lovely area with so much green space, but now it could all disappear.”

“The Government is really pushing these housing targets, and I get that, but it can’t come at the expense of people who already own their own homes.”

SNG has suggested that people whose properties are at risk could be handed compensation, including a home loss payment and location fees, or could enter into shared equity or ownership with the association. But even the market value of properties in Buckskin and South Ham, plus up to 10%, as stipulated in a CPO, may not be enough to secure a similar home in the area.

One neighbour has already had two house sales fall through because of the imminent threat of the regeneration project, Alex said. Local anger due to the uncertainty was worsened by SNG’s claim that a consultation had been running since October 2023, when most residents only learned about it after a leaflet came through their doors in March of this year.

“No one seemed to know what was happening until a few months ago,” Carol Rolfe, 72, said. “Our whole lives could be shattered. It’s so frightening.

“In the maps we’ve seen, our whole row of bungalows has been replaced by flats. It’s not that I particularly want a bungalow, but medically, I couldn’t go up and down the stairs in a house or flat. I’ve lived here for 60 years, and my husband has been here for his whole life. We don’t know where we’ll end up living now. Who’s going to give two state pensioners a mortgage?”

Gareth Roberts, a 41-year-old NHS worker, bought a bungalow near Carol’s on St Patrick’s Road in South Ham with his partner 13 years ago. “We wouldn’t have the same space in a brick-and-mortar property,” he said. “And we’ve put so much money into it – I’ve just sunk £17,000 putting a new front drive in. Now, we’ve had to put all those refurbishment plans on hold.”

“This is our home,” he added. “I get emotional whiplash just thinking about what would happen if we were forced to sell. We’d have to look at leaving town and moving somewhere up north – that’s all we could afford.”

Zena Lindsay, 66, said she was told at a recent meeting with SNG that residents who wanted to keep renovating their properties despite the threat of demolition should “keep the receipts”.

“What does that mean?” she said. “That they’ll reimburse us? It’s incredibly blasé. These are people’s lives they’re dealing with. I’ve lived in Basingstoke since I was four, and my husband and I are retired and have no savings. Our home was bought and paid for 20 years ago.”

“I’m lucky enough to own my own home because my mum bought it in the 1990s and I got it all transferred over to me after her death,” Zach Carr-Drover, 49, a retail worker who also lives on St Patrick’s Road, said. “Some of these new build flats are no bigger than a matchbox, and the gardens are the size of a 5p piece. That would kill me off because I love my garden. I’ve got plants that used to belong to my grandparents, and Mum’s clematis has been there for 34 years now.”

“It’s a family home and all my memories are there. But they could say, ‘You’re a single person with a dog, so we’re going to shove you into a one-bedroom flat on the fifth floor’. It’s even worse that they won’t confirm anything, so we’re all left in a really uncertain place. I think it’s disgusting.”

Darren Gollop, 60, who currently rents from SNG, said he doesn’t understand the “thought process” behind the plans, especially considering Basingstoke’s already-struggling infrastructure, except to capitalise on amped-up housing targets for extra profit.

“This whole thing will drive house prices down, so SNG can buy them for less, knock them down and build tower blocks with a load of flats in their place,” he said.

“All this work the Government is doing to make the planning process quicker means it will probably go ahead. But it also means hundreds more people will need to go to the GP, the hospital and the schools. The area won’t be able to take it.”

Residents Peter Speirs, 70, Helen Dawes, 59, and Jo Bray Harmes, 57, said early renderings of the scheme also appeared to show diverted bus routes down their quiet residential road just outside the regeneration area – something that could cause house prices to drop and impact their quality of life.

“The planning documents say they want to create ‘quiet tree-lined avenues’ as part of the development, but that’s exactly what they’ll be destroying on Old Worting Road,” Peter said.

“What makes matters worse is that SNG couldn’t tell us who had authorised the plan or offer any explanation for the rerouted bus service.”

Locals suggested that the unconfirmed multi-million-pound pricetag of the regeneration project will be too attractive for Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council to refuse, but Sean Dillow, Tory councillor for Buckskin, has called on the authority to press for a smaller-scale development aligned with the views of existing residents.

“The regeneration area is massive,” he said. “It’s about three times the size of Basingstoke town centre, so this huge investment could be a great thing, if it’s done in the right way. You can’t just plough a bulldozer through. You need to take the community with you.”

Council leader Paul Harvey also stressed that CPOs would only be issued to residents “as a last resort, where all efforts to reach agreement have been exhausted and there is an overwhelmingly compelling case in the public interest”.

“Legally, the council would have to consider any request to use compulsory purchase powers, but in 23 years of being a councillor, I’m not aware of the borough council ever using the powers in this way,” he added.

A spokesperson for SNG said: “Since autumn 2023, we’ve been listening to residents and hearing what they love about their area, and where they feel improvements could be made with the right investment. We’ve already heard from many people, but we know there are still many more voices to hear before any long-term decisions are made.

“We understand that some people are naturally worried about possible changes, and we want to be absolutely clear: nothing has been decided yet. We have shared some initial thoughts at several local events, based on the feedback we’ve received from residents who have worked with us. This includes illustrations showing how the early ideas could work together – not a final plan.

“We’re committed to listening to the views of residents and continue to explore long-term ideas which include both retrofitting and refurbishing existing homes, streets and green space, and ideas which would require greater change in some areas.

“We can confirm that there are no current plans to ask the council to issue CPOs.”

Labour reaffirmed its commitment to meeting its self-imposed target of 1.5 million homes before the end of parliament this week after a watchdog suggested 1.3 million would be a more realistic figure.

Ms Rayner said the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast that the UK’s housing stock would only rise by 1.3 million by 2029-30 hadn’t taken into account the impact of reforms including the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and the homes acceleration plan, alongside recent changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

“The OBR scored the NPPF changes we’ve already made, that’s where that figure came from,” she told the House of Commons. “Our other plans, including the homes acceleration plan and the money that we’re investing since then, and the Planning Infrastructure Bill changes, will mean that number will increase and we will meet our 1.5 million homes target.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “While it is ultimately for local councils to decide how they use their compulsory purchase powers, councils should only use their powers where negotiations to acquire land by agreement have failed and there is a compelling case in the public interest.”