Simon Martin: We are delivering the new homes Fareham needs

Cllr Simon Martin is the Leader of Fareham Borough Council.

Fareham Borough Council is a local authority for the area midway between Portsmouth and Southampton. With the town at its centre, the Borough covers the areas of Fareham, Portchester, Stubbington, Hill Head, Titchfield, Park Gate, Warsash, Locks Heath and Sarisbury.

We are a relatively small Council with a population of circa 115,000, however we punch above our weight and have done for many years. We are involved in a number of major projects across the Council, including the development of a new garden village at Welborne, the regeneration of Fareham Town Centre, the master planning of Daedalus Commercial centre and the procurement and operation of new operators at Solent Airport which the Council own, including the master planning of a new commercial centre on the site.

The development of the Welborne Garden Village which will build over 6,000 houses over the next 15 years required the build of a new motorway junction in order to deliver the full range of housing and this was successfully approved (construction is underway) due to the skills, determination and influence of our staff and Councillors.

In 2015, the Council acquired 369 acres of land at Daedalus from Homes England for £1. The site, which has planning permission for over 50,000m2 of commercial development, forms part of the Solent Enterprise Zone), which has been the catalyst for the development of a new £12m college, the Fareham Innovation Centre, a multi-million-pound Stubbington Bypass scheme and the development of mixed use Waterfront regeneration area. The site also includes the Council’s Solent Airport and is a major employee in the area and attracts business from all over the UK.

The regeneration of our town centre is the largest project we have ever undertaken. In 2024, we opened our new entertainment venue Fareham Live which will be the jewel in Fareham’s crown in the town centre. The venue is large enough to attract the very best shows from London. Operated by Trafalgar Theatres, we have sold over 160,000 tickets in the first year of operation. We are now starting to regenerate around the venue and this will be a combination of residential development, retail, commercial, leisure and entertainment facilities as will as linking to our waterfront at Fareham Creek.

We work hard to provide amenities to our residents and have introduced two new parks into the borough over the past five years, one of which was delivered as a local amenity as part of a new interconnector that was constructed importing electricity from France.

Fareham provides all of its direct services in-house and is also a landlord to over 3,500 Council houses. Our Council tax is the third lowest in England and we are proud to deliver value for money services to our residents.

Fareham has been a conservative Council for almost all of its 51 years. There is however a cloud on the horizon with local government reorganisation which could see the Council merged with Havant, Gosport and Portsmouth, making future investment and decision making more problematic and this will make it more difficult to remain in power.

The Council is made up of 32 councillors who are elected in halves every 2 years. The current political make up comprises 24 Conservatives, 6 Liberal Democrats, 1 Labour and 1 Independent. There are elections in 2026 which we always take very seriously regardless of our previous successes.

In Fareham the Council is elected in halves and so the Council will be electing 16 councillors in May, 13 of which are Conservative. With 11 Conservative Councillors not up for election, our challenge will be to win a minimum of six wards in order to retain power for a further two years which would potentially take us up to the new unitary Councils in 2028.

Fareham is financially strong and has track record of excellent service delivery and demonstrating value for money. Its Peer review undertaken in March this year was rated as excellent and in theory we should be looking to a Conservative administration continuing in seven months time. However the changes in policy on the local plan imposed by the government will see our housing numbers increase by over 50 per cent and the continued strain on infrastructure is a concern to residents and if we add the national political picture of Reform with Liberal Democrats silently working in the back ground, we can never be certain of anything so these elections will be more challenging than our last all out elections of 2024.

Our strategy will be focussed on a local campaign on what we have delivered for Fareham and what we propose to do going forward. This was the policy that we used very successfully in the 2024 election when the Conservative Government was at its least popular. Sadly, despite the current governments unpopularity, our lack of national policies currently in place has not made our job any easier and we cannot ignore the added threat of Reform in next year’s election.