Leigh Park Housing Estate Begun

1947

In 1947, Portsmouth City Council began building the Leigh Park housing estate on farmland and the former grounds of Leigh Park House to the north of Havant. The estate was designed to rehouse families displaced by the severe wartime bombing of Portsmouth and to address the chronic housing shortage of the post-war period. Leigh Park grew rapidly through the late 1940s and 1950s to become one of the largest council housing estates in England, housing tens of thousands of people in semi-detached houses, terraces and flats. The estate included schools, shops, community centres and green spaces. Leigh Park transformed the population and character of the Havant area, more than doubling the number of people living within the borough boundaries.