Revival hopes for crunch-hit scheme (From Daily Echo)

Work could restart at Admiral's Quay in Ocean Village

10:32am Tuesday 21st July 2009 in Financial Crisis By Matt Smith, Politics and business reporter

Revival hopes for crunch-hit scheme

A HOUSEBUILDING giant is showing renewed interest in finishing an abandoned flagship development in the city.

The Daily Echo can reveal that Barratt is planning to revive work on the ailing Admiral’s Quay development in Ocean Village.

The firm also wants to relocate the 95-year-old Calshot lightship, which guided vessels in and out of Southampton Water for seven decades but has been a landmark on dry land at Ocean Village.

The city council has been exploring a move to the old Trafalgar (No 6) dry dock, which is now mostly covered and used to store cars coming off container ships.

The Admiral’s Quay scheme, started by Wilson Bowden, was one of the first major victims of the credit crunch in the city last July when the plug was pulled on building work and the waterfront site was put up for sale.

It promoted concerns it might never be completed.

Just three of a planned row of five blocks of flats and two of up to ten restaurants and bars have been built.

Now Barratt, the firm which bought Wilson Bowden in 2007 for £2.2 billion, is in talks with planners over “minor amendments”

to the proposals after no suitable buyer came forward for the £7m plot.

The city council has also appointed a senior officer to drive forward proposals to revitalise the area following lobbying from Itchen MP John Denham and Labour councillor Sarah Bogle, who represents the area.

The news will revive hopes that Ocean Village will one day provide a new waterfront heart for the city and rival Portsmouth’s successful Gunwharf Quays.

It comes as Barratt last week said it had seen signs of stability in the housing market.

Julian Jones, technical director at Barratt’s Southampton division, said: “Barratt Southampton is in ongoing discussions with Southampton City Council.

We are working with the council to bring the scheme forward within the next 18 to 21 months. However, within that period preliminary work including the relocation of the Calshot Spit lightship will be undertaken.”

The firm is still trying to sell the “last few” remaining apartments at the part-completed Admiral’s Quay which it advertises as “a Mecca for international glamour and relaxed Riviera-style living”.

It boasts it is the “single most attractive and stylish waterfront development in England”.