Green light for £150m Bournemouth Winter Gardens scheme

Morgan Sindall’s plans for a £150m regeneration scheme in Bournemouth have been approved by the council’s planning board.Bournemouth Development Company, a joint venture between Morgan Sindall Investments and Bournemouth Council, are planning to develop a mixed use scheme with housing and leisure elements centred on the town’s Winter Gardens exhibition centre.The council is providing the land; Morgan Sindall is stumping up the money.The Winter Gardens site has a long history in the town, dating back to Victorian times, but it has been under-used in recent years. Bournemouth Development Company’s plans for regenerating the town centre will secure Winter Gardens’ place as part of the future of the town, it says.The £150m scheme includes the construction of 352 new homes of a variety of sizes, across four slender multi-storey buildings of varying heights. Grounds will be landscaped for leisure, recreation and residential amenity. There will also be a new piazza at the junction of Exeter and Cranborne Road and a linear park alongside Cranborne Road.Plans also include nearly 600 car parking spaces, with a four-story basement car park.Winter Gardens is the latest and most significant Bournemouth Development Company scheme to be approved. It has already built student flats and parking in Madeira Road, housing in the Citrus Building at Horseshoe Common, and housing and parking at Berry Court on St Peter’s Road.