South view kids step back in time to unveil new apartments
Sentinel Housing Association brought a touch of Jane Austen to South View, Basingstoke, as local children celebrated a new apartment complex. 
North Hampshire's only local landlord marked the completion of the new
“Local schoolchildren helped choose a name for the new building, with the most popular entry being Knightley Court, Mr Knightley is a character in Jane Austen’s novel Emma”, Regeneration Project Manager Susan Woodward explained:
“We thought it would be fun for the two competition winners to be photographed in historic dress outside the newly completed Knightley Court.”
Sentinel is one of the UK's top affordable housing developers, and invested £1.6m to demolish the former Northfield House block of bedsits, and transform the site into 10 one and two bedroom apartments for affordable rent, for people on the housing waiting list.
Construction company Mansell developed the site on behalf of Sentinel, and completed the project in May, ahead of the predicted autumn completion time.
The scheme is the latest in a series of town regeneration projects by Sentinel worth £90m, to replace more than 350 outdated ex-council properties with around 650 new homes by 2011.
