One of the men behind the design of the Locks Heath Shopping VIllage toasted its success when he joined the 30th anniversary celebrations at the weekend.
Fareham Mayor Susan Bayford cuts the 30th birthday cake for the Locks Heath Centre
Hugh Pritchard, a Locks Heath Councillor in the 1980s and vice chairman of the Soland Plan Society – an umbrella group for the residents’ associations and the Park Gate Businessmen’s Association – said it was almost exactly as they had envisioned it.
“You never come here any time of any day without seeing an almost full car park,” said Mr Pritchard.
High Pritchard
“Some people say that it needs to compete with Whiteley but it doesn’t – Whiteley is a totally different sort of shopping with a different scale of buildings.
“With the new name of Locks Heath Shopping VIllage this is now an urban village which is just what we were looking for in the 1970s.”
He said the centre was designed and planned in 1976 but it then took another seven years until it was built in 1983.
The celebrations in Locks Heath saw Mayor Susan Bayford cut a birthday cake and then there was a game of pass the parcel for children and parents to join.
Centre manager Ian Goodridge said he was delighted with the event.
Centre manager Ian Goodridge preparing for the pass the parcel game
“Locks Heath Shopping Village is at the heart of the local community here and people value what it was to offer,” he said. “This has been a really great day for the centre and the area.”
Cloud Nine bridalwear shop was one of the original tenants of the centre – although in the beginning it was on the ground floor and had different owners to today.
But staff at the shop still marked the occasion with a display of 1980s wedding wear, with a borrowed wedding dress from the era.
Co-owner Marilyn Beckett said: “The dress is very different to what brides are looking for today – it was much bigger then. Everything was bigger in the 80s.”
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