Failure of Woking’s Over-ambitious Project Acknowledged

Published on: 20 Jun, 2025
Updated on: 22 Jun, 2025

Victoria Arch, Woking Google

By Chris Caulfield

local democracy reporter

The failure of Woking Borough Council’s Victoria Arch project is complete after the bankrupt authority sold its stake in the Triangle Site.

About half a hectare between Victoria Road and Guildford Road was bought up by the council during its regeneration frenzy – which eventually caused its finances to collapse under £billions of debt.

The idea was to create more town centre homes and widen the Victoria Arch Bridge.

Network Rail has since told the council it has no appetite to proceed and that “for all practical purposes that any scheme to reconstruct the bridge is no longer either financially practicable or supported by key stakeholders”.

With the council’s Executive agreeing to sell the land, during its Thursday (June 12) meeting, in order to balance its books, the council’s regeneration project is dead.

Cllr Dale Roberts

Cllr Dale Roberts (Lib Dem, St John’s), portfolio holder for Finance, told the meeting: “The triangle Site was assembled by the authority to regenerate the area and facilitate extra town centre housing and to allow for the widening of the Victoria Arch bridge

“Like much of what the previous administration did, the project was ambitious but in practical terms fatally flawed.

He added:: “Not least problematic, the council took on projects that involved roads and a rail bridge, rather than partnering Surrey County Council and Network Rail.

“The result was a project that overran and ultimately stalled. It was, in truth, never viable in the way it was configured.

“The project collapsed under its own weight when the council issued its Section 114 (bankruptcy) notice, but the seeds of failure were sewn long before that.

“The council had no right to get into this project.

“We’re closing a chapter on a project that could never have delivered.”

How much the council has received has so far been kept confidential but papers presented to the meeting said the highest financial offer” was accepted.

The original budget to replace the rail bridge was £115 million, but that soon ballooned to about £169 million.

Cllr Ian Johnson

Cllr Ian Johnson (Lib Dem, Mount Hermon), portfolio holder for Housing, added that problems first began to materialise when residents within the area refused to sell their properties.

During the same meeting the council also agreed to the sale of land at Commercial Way as well as its Goldsworth Road industrial estate, notable for being the site where councillors threatened that the council could take its own planning committee to court for refusing planning permission.