ROMSEY'S MP is putting pressure on the government to act over the derelict former brewery site on the outskirts of the town centre.

The undeveloped eyesore has been empty since 1988 and Stanborough Developments Ltd had an application approved for 211 homes in 2006.

Since then, there has been very little activity at the site, with civic chiefs growing increasingly frustrated. By 2019, just 13 homes had been built.

The Advertiser covered the issue in a front page article in April.

Caroline Nokes, the Conservative MP for Romsey and Southampton North, raised the matter in the House of Common in the King's Speech debate.

Ms Nokes said: “I learned very early on in my political career, in 1999, when I was first elected as a councillor and my dad told me that that there is nothing in politics quite as vexed as the politics of the southern area planning committee of Test Valley Borough Council. He was right. I want to reassure the honourable gentleman opposite that that is a council which has already modernised its planning committee. It has already great strides, and until the nitrate issue in the Solent hit us, it was also one of the councils that was delivering the highest number of homes in the country. 

Romsey Brewery site (Image: Newsquest)

READ MORE: Lib Dems launch petition to call for action on undeveloped eyesore

“But it is a council that has faced challenges, and I really welcome the announcement around compulsory purchase orders and the changes that might come, but we need detail on them. 

“So I seek from the ministers opposite reassure that the detail will come and it will give real powers to local authorities.”

The MP added: “Test Valley Borough Council has faced a challenge since 1982 when the Romsey Brewery started its last brew, I was at the local primary school and I remember the smell well. But that brewery site has an extant planning permission which has not been built out in the last 40 years. It's a phenomenal shame to the town that every time the local council has tried to put in a successful compulsory purchase order, the developer has simply started one more unit of accommodation to delay that from happening. 

“It's Stanborough Developments who bring that curse to Romsey and it has also meant that we have a brownfield site in the middle of the town with an extant planning permission which has simply never been finished. That could be providing homes for local people. 

“I'm looking for reassurance, and I appreciate this requires retrospective legislation, that the Labour government will seek to hold good the promises made and we can see developers like Stanborough suitably punished.”