Fanum House
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Fanum House is the headquarters of the Automobile Association in Basingstoke, in the English county of Hampshire.[1] It is one of several AA buildings named "Fanum House" around the country. The original headquarters in Leicester Square was also called Fanum House, 'Fanum' being the call sign of the AA.
Early years
The AA took advantage of 1960s government incentives to move from their London HQ to the rapidly expanding town of Basingstoke. The building was completed in 1970 and AA employees moved in at that point, and it was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth in 1973. It is an 83 metre (274 feet), eighteen storey, building (seventeen of offices plus a viewing gallery on top).
Location
Fanum House is clearly visible from the M3 motorway and from the A30 approaching Basingstoke. The name 'Fanum' is a Latin word for temple and was chosen to reflect the AA's status as the UK's premier motor breakdown company.
The Skyline Plaza development in the town centre replaced it as the tallest building in Basingstoke when it was extended from 61 metres to 85 metres, with the addition of three floors in 2009.[2]
Fanum House today
The seventeenth floor was originally executive offices with its own bar but is now the same layout as the other floors in the tower block. There was also a bar on the second-floor canteen when the building first opened, though this closed some years ago.
There is no floor 1; the ground floor is known as 'Upper Ground' and the 'Lower Ground' basement floor is about half the size of the floors in the tower block. The first floor up in the lift or stairs is called Floor 2. The Upper Ground floor is much larger than the floors in the tower block, with a huge open-plan flat-roof office area, a coffee bar, shop, learning centre and a theatre which is used for company presentations. The building also has a large undercover car park, notorious with employees for its very narrow parking spaces. This is due to the increase in the average size of cars since it was built, a common problem for older car parks in the UK[3] . There is an undercover connecting walkway from the car park to the Upper Ground floor.
Floor 10 is not regular offices, most of it is a power supply and building control area. Part of it is office space but, although AA employees do have access to this floor, generally most do not know how to get there. It is clearly visible from outside after dark as there is one floor which is clearly in darkness.
Fanum House does not meet today’s energy efficiency standards, in part due to a lack of investment and modernisation, meaning rising running costs and reduced comfort for employees, and its layout and mechanical, electrical, and technology set-up is so out of date that a number of floors in the tower have had to be ‘mothballed’.[4]
Future of Fanum House
The AA's HQ moved to the purpose-built Norfolk House on the edge of the Basingstoke ring road at the A340 junction in the mid-1990s, with the intention of closing Fanum House altogether. However the new offices were not large enough for all the Basingstoke-based employees, and both buildings operated for a period. It was ultimately Norfolk House that closed in 2002, following the takeover of the AA by Centrica in 1999, when the HQ functions moved to Farnborough. In 2005, the headquarters returned to Fanum House.
In April 2017 it was announced that the AA would be leaving Fanum House and moving to new offices in Basing View and Fanum House was to be demolished as part of this move.[4][5] However in September 2017 it was announced that the AA would be staying at its existing home and would be spending money to develop the site.[6]
51°16′09″N 1°04′16″W / 51.2693°N 1.0710°W
References
- ^ "Basingstoke - AA Careers". Theaacareers.co.uk. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- ^ "Plaza has pleasing outlook". Basingstoke Gazette. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- ^ "How our cars outgrew our car park spaces". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
- ^ a b "Press releases". Basingstoke.gov.uk. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- ^ "Property deal keeps AA headquarters in Basingstoke". Bbc.co.uk. 12 April 2017. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- ^ "The AA make a U-turn and stay put". Basingstoke Gazette. Retrieved 29 September 2017.