The Camrose: how Basingstoke lost its football ground

If you have driven round the Brighton Hill roundabout, you have driven past Basingstoke’s football ground, or what is left of it. You may not have noticed. Basingstoke has never been especially good at noticing its football club, right up until the point it nearly lost it.

A ground with a newspaper baron’s name

Basingstoke Town were formed in 1896, and spent their first half-century at Castlefields. In 1945 Lord Camrose, the newspaper proprietor who had bought nearby Hackwood Park in 1936, offered the club a site for a new ground.

It started out modestly, as Winchester Road: a small wooden stand, some grass banking and a bit of terracing. The first match was played on 1 December 1945, against Southampton Borough Police. The ground was later renamed after the man who made it possible.

The Camrose grew the way non-league grounds tend to, one improvement at a time when there was money for it. A new clubhouse arrived in 1969, a main stand in 1970, then floodlights, more terracing and eventually a roof over the far side. By the end it held around 6,000.

The good years

The Camrose’s biggest day came in November 1997, when 5,085 people turned up for an FA Cup first-round tie against Wycombe Wanderers, then a Football League side. Basingstoke took them to a replay, drew 2–2 and won on penalties. In the second round they took Northampton Town to a replay as well, before going out on penalties.

From 2004 to 2016 the club played in the National League South, which is about as high as a town of Basingstoke’s size usually gets to see.

2019: out

In 2019 the club’s former owner, Rafi Razzak, sought to sell the Camrose for development, and the club was forced to leave the ground it had played on since 1945. Its “home” games moved to Winchester City’s ground, about 20 miles away. It was the same year the club was relegated from the Southern League Premier Division South.

In January 2020 a photo circulating on social media showed a bulldozer tearing up the Camrose pitch.

The fight

Two outline planning applications followed from Basron, a company linked to Razzak: one for up to 85 homes, the other for a 70-bed care home and six more homes.

The town did not take it quietly. More than 2,500 people signed petitions against the plans and 66 wrote formal objections. The Basingstoke Gazette dug out a covenant on the club’s lease that limited the land to sport until 2053, ran “history is watching” on its front page, and sent a copy to every councillor on the planning committee. The story was picked up nationally, with Gary Lineker among those paying attention.

On 25 September 2020 the council’s development control committee refused both applications, going against its own officers’ recommendation to approve them. The committee decided the benefits did not outweigh the harm of losing the town’s football ground.

A month later, in October 2020, the club came home to Basingstoke, to the upgraded Hampshire FA sports complex at Winklebury.

The appeal

Basron appealed. After a four-day public inquiry in March 2022, the Planning Inspectorate allowed both appeals on 6 May 2022.

The inspector’s decision turned on a single question: was the replacement any good? Planning rules allow a sports ground to be built on if an equivalent or better facility is provided. He compared the Camrose as it had been in April 2019 with Winklebury after a package of upgrades, and concluded Winklebury would be the better facility overall. The Camrose had more space, more parking and a boardroom; Winklebury had a 3G pitch and a new clubhouse. Sport England did not object.

The covenant the Gazette had found was ruled a legal matter, separate from planning, and given no weight. The permissions came with conditions, including a £300,000 contribution towards an artificial pitch and £100,000 towards a grass pitch.

While all this was going on, the old car park found a new use: from February 2022 it served as the contractor’s compound for the £20 million Brighton Hill roundabout upgrade.

Who owns it now

Basron never built anything. In December 2024 it sold its share of the site, around 71%, to Sovereign Housing Developments, part of the housing association SNG.

The council owned the rest, a 1.9-acre strip along the north side that was still leased to Basingstoke Town Ltd for a nominal £65 a year. On 11 February 2025 the council’s cabinet agreed to sell that strip to Sovereign too, so the whole site could be developed together, and recommended that the money from the sale go into improving football facilities in Basingstoke.

In February 2026 SNG and Hill, working together as the Sovereign Hill Partnership, published updated plans for around 100 affordable homes on the old stadium site, including family houses and homes designed for disabled people. They have said they intend to submit the plans to the council later in 2026.

Where that leaves things

The club survived, which was never guaranteed. Basingstoke Town won the Isthmian League South Central Division in 2022–23, and spent 2025–26 in the Southern League Premier Division South, playing at Winklebury.

The Camrose will become housing, and probably more useful housing than the first plans offered. That is not nothing: the council expects the homes on its strip alone to help people on its housing register.

It is still a loss. A ground is more than a pitch with a fence round it. It is where people stood in the same spot for forty years, and where the town turned up in its thousands in November 1997 to watch its club take on a Football League side. Winklebury may be the better facility, as the inspector concluded. It just hasn’t had seventy years to become anybody’s ground yet.

Going to a game? Our Basingstoke Town FC guide covers getting to Winklebury and planning a matchday. The Camrose site itself is private land, so there is nothing to visit.