Inside wealthy landowner's battle to build a new £308m eco-village

Sitting in his boardroom, surrounded by lavish portraits of his relatives and copies of paintings by famed artist Thomas Gainsborough, Mark Thistlethwayte is not your typical builder.

The wealthy 60-year-old Old Etonian from Hampshire has a cut-glass English accent and heads a landed estate which has been in his family for 500 years.

He owns the Southwick Estate, a vast collection of local landholdings that includes much of the village of Southwick itself, sold to his ancestors by Henry VIII during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536. 

Now the former chief executive of finance firm LCF Rothschild is spearheading the development of a controversial £308million eco-housing project, that has enraged locals, who fear it will transform the rural beauty spot into a 'concrete jungle'.

Some 6,000 homes are going to be constructed on a vast 1,000-acre plot of open land between the villages of Knowle and Wickham, in Hampshire, following a contentious 20-year battle to build the 'Welborne Garden Village'.

The project - which will essentially create a new town between Southampton and Portsmouth – was first mooted back in June 2004 and has been a furious talking point ever since.  

Outraged villagers have dubbed the humongous eco-housing scheme 'Hellborne' and fear it will annihilate their picturesque and rural idyll, creating thousands of home that nobody wants. 

Funding had been secured to build 1,160 homes, but Fareham Borough Council has now declared it is 'all systems go' after it secured funding to build all 6,000 homes.

Locals will now face decades of building work disruption, with construction of the multi-million pound development expected to take a staggering 30 years to complete. 

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For those living in Knowle, it means the flattening of trees and hedgerows which previously separated their stretch of rural paradise from more urban areas in the south. 

Opposition to the development has been long-running. A month after planning permission was granted in October 2021, villagers launched a 2,000-strong petition to protest the cutting down of trees and hedgerows in Knowle. 

The spirited sense of anger is something Mr Thistlethwayte is all too aware of. 'I live next door to this and my family have been here for nearly 500 years,' Mr Thistlethwayte - dubbed the 'Squire' by some in Southwick - told The Telegraph. 

'People know where I live, literally. They'll come and throw stones through my windows if I do a crap job.' 

The 60-year-old, who is chairman of Buckland Development, the master developer behind Welborne Garden Village, insists he understands fears from his neighbours and that he has gone out of his way to address them. 

He argues that land would have eventually been developed in one form or another, with Fareham council having previously threatened to use compulsory purchase orders to acquire the land as it seeks to meet its own housing targets. 

Instead, Mr Thistlethwayte marshalled ownership of the entire plot, spending millions of his family's wealth to buy up small plots he did not already own, as well as reducing the size of Welborne from 10,000. 

The original plot identified by the local council, which has been ordered to build 80,000 new homes in south Hampshire, spanned about 80 per cent of which was on the Southwick Estate owned by the Thistlethwaytes. The family objected.

'The scale was completely inappropriate,' Mr Thistlethwayte previously said. 'They just wanted homes. Nobody thought about what a community might have looked like.'

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A compromise saw the council agreeing to a 6,000-home settlement, which will cover six per cent of Thistlethwayte's land.

And to try and get locals on board, the landowner hired architects and landscapers who worked for the King to help make the eco-project as 'beautiful' as possible. 

Ben Pendreath, a lead designer of the King's Poundbury development in Dorchester, was drafted in as town planner, while the celebrated landscaper Kim Wilkie was hired to curate the scheme's large green spaces, which include a forest.

Welborne's streets will be populated by a mix of terraced, semi-detached and detached homes, all with the same red-brick and flint architecture seen in neighbouring villages. 

He has even laid a 200-acre solar park that will produce enough energy to power 16,000 homes. 

His 'vision' is to focus on 'good architecture' and 'thoughtful landscaping' in the hopes 'to build a new town that will look as good in 50 or 100 years' time as it does the day it is first built'.

Its eco-friendly homes will be powered by the solar farm and by a cutting-edge underground heating network that uses heat pumps and taps into a nearby reservoir.

But residents of Knowle and nearby Wickham fear Welborne will 'decimate' the area's beauty. transforming it into an ugly 'concrete jungle'. 

They say their views have been ignored by Fareham Borough Council, which has ploughed on ahead, regardless.  

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Reacting to the news on Facebook, local Kay Sumpner raged: 'Where is all the wildlife you've made homeless going to? I regularly saw deer on those fields, and foxes and rabbits.'

Locals previously said the mile-long picturesque Knowle Road which leads into the village - a 'green corridor' - had been destroyed.

Some 30 acres of trees and hedges lining the main road will go so houses can be built on the edge of it, they said.

Loraine Rappe, who chairs the Knowle Residents' Association, said it is a 'shame' that they have destroyed the green space.

'The particular annoyance is the destruction of all the shrubs and trees,' she said, adding: 'People have been referring to the whole development as Hellborne.'

Kayleigh Rooke set up a petition to 'Save Knowle Road Trees and Hedgerows' added it was 'infuriating' for locals who feel as if they are being ignored by developers when campaigning against the destruction of green space.

The business support administrator slammed the 'complete and utter disregard for how the residents feel' and said the developers have taken the 'character' of Knowle Village.

She said the area is going to be turned into a 'concrete jungle'.

But the proposal was previously championed by former Housing Minister Michael Gove, who hailed it beautiful. 

Mr Thistlethwayte previously admitted he was a 'Nimby' - a term meaning 'not in my back yard' - when the proposals to overhaul the land were first unveiled. 

'I was absolutely opposed to it,' he told the Telegraph.  'But we've reduced the amount of houses – it's come down from 10,000 to 6,000 – and we've vastly expanded the infrastructure and the green spaces, and everything else.'

On Wednesday a spokesperson for Fareham council said the full funding to deliver critical infrastructure is now in place, meaning all 6,000 homes will be built.

They said if this had not been done, Welborne would only have been able to build just over 1,000 houses.

The council said: 'Fareham Borough Council is delighted to confirm that it's 'all systems go' for Welborne Garden Village, following confirmation that funding to deliver critical infrastructure is now in place.

'The recent announcement confirming the M27 Junction 10 improvements means all 6,000 new homes at Welborne can be built.'

Speaking on the update, Fareham council boss Councillor Simon Martin, said: 'This is terrific news for the borough.

'Fareham Borough Council is set housing targets by Government, so it is really important for us to deliver the number of homes set out in the Council's Local Plans.

'Without the motorway improvements, Welborne would only be able to bring forward 1,160 new homes and the council would need to find space for the additional 4,840 homes elsewhere in the borough.'