Lortemore car park could be sold for residential development when the new Travel Centre has been put into service. This could become a showpiece development of high-density housing designed for people who want to live, shop and possibly work in the town:

• The development should be exciting and extremely attractive. A visitor standing in Latimer or Church Street should want to enter the site and explore it further which meets one of the objectives of the development - to broaden the area of interest in the town.

The site is surrounded by relatively unappealing townscape and its development will be a challenge for the architect. Its design could be thrown open to international competition as was the new site in Frome (Somerset) - now an award winning development set in the heart of an old market town of about the same size as Romsey.

• Following a principle developed in many European countries and used extensively by Camden Council (see Appendix A), owners of these homes would not have cars and would not be allowed to apply for residents street parking permits.

The reason for this restriction is two-fold; firstly the people who live here would be truly integrated into the town (to the benefit of local shops without adding to the traffic problem) and secondly it accords with the general movement towards the greater use of public transport.
The site would be of high density (50 to100 homes/ha) possibly as high as the Strong's tower (five floors), with communal spaces owned by a management company comprised of residents so as to ensure a high standard of maintenance.

• Following the example of the Millennium Village at Greenwich Peninsula, all homes would be built to a very high standard of insulation and low water consumption. A single high efficiency heating unit would supply the whole site.
• The road at present serving the Post Office, the shops by Abbey Walk and the backs of the houses in Portersbridge Street may have to remain but it would be a shared surface designed to slow the speed of vehicles and pedestrian priority would be evident on this road.

Section 6: Some ideas about the development of Newton Lane car park

It is proposed that Newton Lane car park is closed and developed into a town garden. It would be a pleasant and tranquil town square owned and maintained by TVBC. Unlike the Lortemore car park, this area is surrounded by varied and pleasant buildings which are, at present, lost to the sea of motor cars in their midst. This is an ideal setting for a new garden. Apart from the delightful King John's House garden, the town lacks a sizeable green area in the centre where people can sit and read their newspapers or watch their children playing.

• The garden would be ringed by a narrow road to serve the shops and houses around it and there would be provision for limited residents’ car parking at the north end. It would also attract pedestrian traffic past the shops in Bell Street. The road would be a narrow one-way shared surface designed to keep traffic speed very low and pedestrian priority is clearly evident.
• As it is only a very short walk from the new Travel Centre, a children’s play area could be incorporated in the garden which could possibly replace the children's play area in the Memorial Park. This small area which terminates in a peninsula with fast flowing water down either side is exquisitely situated and could be developed as a town beauty spot.
• The garden could incorporate an outdoor eating area. Perhaps La Parisienne or the Thai restaurant would be interested in leasing a part of it which they would use in the summer as an extension of their premises.

The development of Newton Lane car park into a garden assists in one of the objectives in this report which is to increase the depth of interest in the town.