Love Your Place Challenge Day
Botley as a Destination
The following is a narrative of the Future Towns Innovation Hub (FTIH) hosted, Love Your Place (LYP) Challenge Day that is setting out how we can make Botley as a Destination (BaaD).
The challenge day was held on the 11th March 2026 and was facilitated by Kathryn & Robert Woolf from Made Open (they are the service designers), Dr Tom Rushby and Prof. Clint Styles from the FTIH at University of Southampton.
Attendees were from Botley Parish Council (members and staff), along with officers from Eastleigh Borough Council and Hampshire County Council (the joint co-sponsors). Plus, representatives of the High Street and Botley Mills business community.
Tom had dressed our workshop room with some pictures of Botley and some quotes from participants. This was to help us get in the mood.
Scene Setting
The background to LYP is due to the pending changes Botley High Street will face when the Botley bypass opens in the summer of 2027.
Participants heard from Cllr Chris Cooper (Chair – Botley Parish Council) on the why we are here. In short unless we work collaboratively together towards a common goal, the opportunity to make Botley High Street a people centric from its current car centric domination could be lost. Ultimately, we all want Botley to thrive. Question is. How?
Next up was Robert Woolf who took us all through the double diamond method, which was going to ask us to think about the Botley we wanted to see in the future. The Vision.
Whilst also recognising that the challenge day was step 1 in a multistep process. The end output of phase one (left hand diamond) will be some design briefs. These design briefs will be ready by the summer of 2026. They will then influence budget and project plans through the remainder of 2026 into 2027-28 and beyond.
Double Diamond and the timeline
Attendees then heard from the Hampshire County Council team, firstly Joe Malone who gave us all an update on the proposed scheme. Confirming that a suitable budget was now available. However, what that budget would precisely deliver and when the works would start is still to be confirmed. See this link for more details on the public engagement.
Joe stated that changes to the High Street would be immediate as the Highways Authority has to motivate drivers to use the new bypass. This means a lower speed limit (20mph) and some temporary build outs to calm traffic. The formal more permanent layout will likely be coming in late 2027-28.
Picture of one of the potential High Street design options from HCC Highways
Second element from Hampshire County Council was the business support package being made available which Eleanor Harris walked us through.
3 Themes
Based on multiple discussions before the workshop with the co-sponsors and the LYP organisers three themes were settled on. They would be the core of the day’s discussions. These themes are:
- The Business Community
- Visitor & Resident Experience
- Getting to and around Botley
Step 1 – Visioning Exercise
Post a coffee break the teams got into a huddle around tables and under the excellent guidance from our facilitators we started to vision. Captured on post-its and placed on the vision board.
The teams then shared their perspectives, and these were collated onto a digital Miro Board.
Step 2 – Prioritisation
Once we had our vision outlined, the next step was prioritisation. This involved the workshop participants placing dots on the ideas they preferred.
This too was placed on post its and then transferred to Miro.
Last step was a review and a reframing exercise. This was done mostly offline by Kathryn from Made Open directly onto Miro. It is a great summary of where we are and lines us up well for the design brief building phase.
Step 3 – Reframing
Next Step
The next phase is wider engagement with the Botley business and resident communities. This is to share the work completed so far and encourage participation on potential projects.
To support this engagement, we’ve created a dedicated “Botley as a Destination” page on the Future Towns Innovation Hub platform. Five team spaces are now available for participants to join; collaborate and contribute as we move into the design brief development phase.
Please visit:
https://hub.futuretowns.soton.ac.uk/botley-as-a-destination
Please note this article includes links to external websites