AS the regeneration of Whitehill and Bordon continues to snowball, a group of young creatives are documenting the town’s unprecedented transformation.

The Phoenix Theatre and Arts Centre, in Station Road, has received £16,700 from the Heritage Lottery Fund for a project called A Changing Town.

The project, run by young people from The Phoenix Youth Theatre, focuses on exploring the history of the town while it goes through “exceptional, one-off changes”.

In a statement, The Phoenix Theatre said the young people behind the project had expressed “a great interest” in developing new knowledge of their home town and sharing it with others.

The group has been working with Southsea-based media company Strong Island Media to learn digital film and photography techniques.

These skills, alongside a workshop delivered by the Hampshire Archives and Local Studies in Winchester, will be used to create a documentary about Whitehill and Bordon and build an online archive of images and footage that tells the town’s story.

As part of the research for the documentary and as a basis for location filming, members of the youth theatre were given a behind-the-scenes look at the former Prince Philip Barracks by site developer the Whitehill and Bordon Regeneration Company.

Chris and Bill Wain, of the Woolmer Forest Heritage Society, provided an in-depth historical tour of the site.

The group were also allowed access to the Louisburg Barracks development, to the north of Prince Philip Barracks, with site manager Phil Cripps, which included a visit to the St George’s Garrison Church.

The project will build on the success of Bordon Reflections - a scheme made possible by the Ministry of Defence Covenant Fund, focusing on the heritage and connections between military and civilian life in Bordon.

A Changing Town will expand on the Reflections project by further exploring the “rich civilian and military heritage”, as well as the current social changes.

The youth theatre is keen to capture the moment the Army left Whitehill and Bordon by “uncovering stories of local community members” and “capturing military buildings before the new housing is completed”.

During the summer, the youth theatre will work with SharkLegs, a London-based theatre company, and with Eastleigh-based The Point’s Associate Artist Scheme to create a performance at The Phoenix Theatre, set for Wednesday, July 5.

Establishing “a sense of place” and a local identity is one of the developer’s more nuanced aims. As Bordon held the title of garrison town for so many decades, a fear for some was that, when the Army left in 2015, any sense of identity might also disappear.

This presents regeneration stakeholders with a relatively unique exercise in rebranding and, while organic, abstract and subjective notions like local identity are nearly impossible to steer, laying the physical foundations for a more positive view of Whitehill and Bordon is doable.

Instead of local pride, some residents have often been quick to put down the town, with a perception that Bordon has inferior facilities, less infrastructure and is the first to feel any districtwide pinch when compared with the neighbouring towns of Alton and Petersfield.

However, with hundreds of millions of pounds of investment, thousands of new homes and tangible infrastructure arriving on schedule, it is growing harder and harder to justify even the most entrenched cynicism.

The regeneration is said to be “a complex, £1billion, multi-partner, 15-year collaborative and transformational place-making programme”.

The timeline runs to 2030 and will see the development of 3,350 new homes, a promised 5,500 jobs and nearly 100,000sqm of new commercial, retail and leisure floor space, as well as a new school, a new town centre and the new relief road.

n For more information about the changing town project, or to get involved with the youth theatre, email project manager Kimberley Brewin at kimberley.brewin

@phoenixarts.co.uk.