The council will sell Joule Road Industrial Estate below market value to Greenham Trust, which will build the furniture charity a new base on a 15-year lease.

Basingstoke’s Community Furniture Project is a step closer to a new building. The council has approved the sale of the Joule Road Industrial Estate in Houndmills to the Greenham Trust, which will redevelop it and give the charity a new base on the same site.

The decision was signed on 24 September by the council’s Director of Regeneration and published on 5 October. It approves the heads of terms and lets the council enter a contract for sale. Councillors have until Monday 12 October to call it in. If nobody does, it takes effect on 13 October (decision record).

What the deal is

The council is selling the estate for less than it could get on the open market. That is allowed when a sale improves the area’s economic, social or environmental wellbeing, as long as the discount is no more than £2 million. The signed decision confirms the discount is below that limit. The price itself is kept confidential.

In return, the Greenham Trust, a Newbury-based charity, has agreed to:

  • redevelop the site
  • grant the Community Furniture Project a 15-year lease on a new building there
  • charge rent at 53.5% of the market rate
  • keep the charity’s security of tenure, so the lease is not contracted out of it

There are safeguards for the council. If the trust does not apply for planning permission by an agreed date, or does not build, the council can buy the land back at the price it sold it for. If the trust fails to grant the lease, or the charity later leaves, some or all of the discount has to be repaid.

Why the council is doing it

The estate is 12 warehouse units in two terraces, about 24,000 sq ft in all. They probably date from the early 1970s. The Cabinet report of September 2025 said they had reached the end of their economic life. They need extensive roof repairs that officers called “uneconomic”, and the eaves are too low for modern tenants. The six leases on the estate were set to expire in February 2026.

The Community Furniture Project has been on the estate since 2004. It uses four of the units, about 8,000 sq ft across both terraces. It sells low-cost furniture and white goods to low-income families, pensioners and vulnerable residents across north Hampshire and Berkshire. It repairs items for reuse, and offers volunteering, training and certification.

Officers looked at other options and rejected them:

  • doing nothing, because the buildings no longer meet modern requirements
  • repairing them, because the cost was not worth it for buildings of that age
  • the council redeveloping the site itself, because development is not its core business
  • selling on the open market, which would bring in more money but “would most likely result in the loss of the facility” for the charity
  • moving the charity, because no other site met its needs: a central spot on key bus routes, a large yard, and affordable modern space with higher eaves

Cabinet agreed the sale in principle on 16 September 2025. This month’s decision fills in the terms.

What the council gets, and gives up

The estate leaves the council’s commercial property portfolio. The council gives up a full open market sale price, and the sale proceeds will be reinvested in other property. The decision says the charity’s work also helps the council with waste. Every fridge or washing machine it repairs and sells is one fewer in the council’s bulky waste collections. The decision notes that the borough “currently has one of the lowest recycling rates in the country”.

The discount and the reduced rent count as a subsidy under the Subsidy Control Act 2022. The council says it has done a full assessment and will publish the record on the government’s subsidy transparency database.

Planning still has to be cleared

This is a land deal, not a planning permission. The estate is protected for employment use under the Local Plan, so any scheme the Greenham Trust brings forward will have to justify losing or reshaping industrial space. The council’s planning comment in the decision says the charity’s jobs, training and community work are “capable of attracting significant weight”. There is no planning application yet, and the published papers give no building timetable. That sits in a confidential appendix.

What it means for you

If you buy from the Community Furniture Project, or donate to it, nothing changes yet. It stays at Joule Road while the deal goes through, and its new building is planned for the same site.

If you are on a low income and setting up a home, this is the charity the council describes as providing low-cost furniture and white goods to people in your position. Once the new building opens, the lease gives it at least 15 years there.

If you have views on the redevelopment, the time to give them is when the Greenham Trust’s planning application is published. New applications appear on the council’s planning register, and our planning news page tracks the big ones.

Only councillors can call in a decision. If you think this one should be looked at again, contact your ward councillor before the deadline of 12 October. The estate is in Norden ward.