Alton Town Partnership

Overview

East Hampshire is good for hotel investment, with a diverse market for business and leisure tourism. Renowned for its beautiful countryside and unrivalled for its high quality of life, East Hampshire combines a rich natural heritage with vibrant market towns and villages. Much of the district is in or near the proposed South Downs National Park, and leisure tourism is predicted to grow as plans for the Park come to fruition. Nearly half the district currently is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Alton and Petersfield are thriving market towns, with much of interest for visitors including established programmes of events. The diverse and buoyant local economy, with over 4,500 businesses, provides excellent tourism opportunities.  There are very good prospects for sustainable economic growth.  East Hampshire is markedly more prosperous than the national average.

Population Profile

East Hampshire's population is 109,276 (2001 census data) with over 4000 businesses and offers employment for 30,000 people together with about 6500 people in self employment.  Its age profile is similar to the county average.  The district is forecast to see its population grow by 9.11% between 2001 and 2026, slightly above the county average of 7.96%.  In a ‘quality of life’ measure (1=highest, 376 lowest) in England and Wales, East Hampshire was rated 49th.

Economic Activity and Employers

The local economy of East Hampshire has grown faster than the South East of England and Britain as a whole. Economic activity is particularly strong in advanced manufacturing & business services and tourism & leisure. In the countryside, agriculture remains an important sector of the local economy.  The area has seen particularly strong growth in the small and medium sized business sector. East Hampshire has the lowest proportion of large firms (0.7%) amongst all districts in Hampshire.  Some 24% of the district’s employees work in large firms (compared to 50% in some other areas of the county) and 19% work in small firms.  However, East Hampshire has the highest business density in the county, indicating the high level of enterprise in its economy.  Self-employment at 11.7% of the economically active population is also high.  The high quality environment and the range of local services are particularly important reasons why companies have located, expanded and remained in East Hampshire. This economic activity is concentrated in the towns of Alton, Petersfield and Whitehill and the larger villages of Horndean, Liphook, Liss and Four Marks. 

Tourism

Tourism is annually worth £150m to East Hampshire, providing 6% of tourism business turnover in Hampshire.  Some 213,000 staying visitors spend £31m and a further 3.2m day visitors spend an additional £97m.  Jane Austen’s House, the Watercress Line Steam Railway, Gilbert White’s House and a number of small museums and galleries are the area’s core tourism product.  The area is essentially rural with a number of attractive villages and market towns.  National Park designation may well raise interest in visits to the area in forthcoming years.  Accessing the countryside is popular, with many opportunities for walking, cycling and horse riding on a network of routes.

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