Following the success of an NHS pop-up Health Hub, Festival Place is launching a new and larger vaccination and community health clinic. The facility occupies 6,113 sq. ft. of space in a prime location on the centre’s ground floor.
The NHS Health Hub in Festival Place is the first of its kind within a top tier UK retail destination and demonstrates Festival Place’s strong commitment to invest in and serve its community.
Since opening in January 2022, the temporary clinic has proved a popular service for the local community. The new facility is a direct response to growing demand for town-centre health services.
Neil Churchill, Centre Director at Festival Place, said: “We take great pride in supporting our Basingstoke community and know how important it is for people to get easy access to health services. We are delighted to be able to help and provide an accessible space here at Festival Place.”
Russell Jewell, Head of Private Equity Funds at AEW, said: “The opening of a health hub within Festival Place is a great endorsement for the ongoing transformation taking place at the centre under AEW’s leadership. It is very encouraging and testifies to our proactive approach to asset management which is to offer a mix of brands and services that care for the needs of our wide range of customers within the immediate and wider local area.”
Hampshire GP and Clinical Director at the Hampshire, Southampton and Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group Dr Tim Cooper said: “This is a great opportunity for us to get involved in the local community and make health services more convenient to the people living in Basingstoke. We really think that this ‘healthcare on the High Street’ model could make it easier for more people to get the help they need and support patients to think differently about how they access healthcare. We’re keen to try it out and see if it can add to the current landscape of healthcare in Basingstoke.”
Despite the prevailing uncertainty, Festival Place continues to demonstrate resilience and relevance as a key retail and leisure destination within its catchment area, consistently outperforming the UK Shopping Centre benchmark. In April 2022, revenue saw an increase of +40.8% vs 2021 and +2.3% vs 2019.
Having launched in October 2002, Festival Place was acquired by AEW in 2015 and is the highest ranked shopping centre outside a major UK city. It is listed in the top 25 of the latest Global Data’s UK shopping centres report and sits within Trevor Wood Associates’ Premier League of shopping centres. The 1.1 million sq. ft retail and leisure destination features retail, dining and leisure brands such as Apple, H&M, M&S, Next, Waterstones, BrewDog and Five Guys alongside amenities including a Sports Centre with swimming pool and gym, a 10-screen Vue Cinema, a Flip Out trampoline park, Escape and indoor entertainment experience plus office space and a library.
Joint agents for Festival Place are Lunson Mitchenall and Cushman & Wakefield. CBRE is the managing agent for the centre.
