Ash Care Home Proposal For Vacant Bewley Site Moves To Next Stage

Published on: 18 Jul, 2025
Updated on: 19 Jul, 2025

The site off Hammersley Drive that had been earmarked in 2019 for a healthcare facility

By David Reading

Bewley Homes has come to an agreement with a company that wants to open and run a care home in Ash, on the vacant plot of land set aside by Bewley in 2019 for healthcare purposes.

This week, Bewley said that the specialist care home provider is now undergoing discussions with Guildford Borough Council. The scheme would require council planning permission before it could go ahead.

Bewley’s new Ash Lodge Park estate south of Ash Lodge Drive – a total of 481 homes – has inevitably put pressure on infrastructure and there was an assumption originally that the plot of land set aside by Bewley might be the site for a new GPs’ surgery. However, the NHS rejected that suggestion.

In October 2024, The Guildford Dragon NEWS revealed that a consortium of GPs had expressed an interest in building and running a general practice surgery on the site, which is off Hammersley Drive.

But NHS Frimley insisted that the best way to meet the area’s increase in population will be to invest in the existing GP services rather than by building a new surgery. A statement said this was being achieved by expanding the number of consulting rooms at the two practices serving the area – the Bartlett Group with surgeries in Ash Vale and Frimley Green and the Border Practice just over the Hampshire border.

Bewley had set aside the land in Ash as one of its Section 106 legal obligations. The 2019 agreement with GBC stipulated that the land had to be used for healthcare, but that agreement has now expired, with some people expressing fears that with the land reverting to Bewley it could be used for more housing. But Bewley has said this is not the company’s intention and has actively pursued other uses for the land.

Other options have been discussed, including opening a private nursery and a dental practice. No agreement was reached on either of those options. At present the care home proposal is believed to be the only one on the table.

Asked this week about the future use for the site, GBC made no mention of the care home proposal but said: “The NHS confirmed with Bewley Homes that they did not want the land and will not take it on as any form of NHS facility.  Guildford Borough Council tried to negotiate (with the NHS), and they also confirmed to us that they were not interested.

“Bewley were hopeful that they would be able to get some form of healthcare provider, which could be a private healthcare facility. But the timing for the provision of this facility has now expired so another use could occur on the land.”

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