Flashback: Opinion – The Latest Station Design from Solum Is a Disgrace

Published on: 24 Nov, 2025
Updated on: 24 Nov, 2025

Flashback looks at Dragon NEWS stories of a decade ago.

Ten years ago this week, the editor of the Guildford Dragon railed against the design of the proposed Guildford Station development…

First published on The Guildford Dragon NEWS on November 27, 2015.

An artist impression of the latest plan for a redeveloped railway station from Solum.

By Martin Giles

Am I the only person outraged at the latest offering by Solum for a redeveloped railway station for Guildford?

I actually felt angry when I saw the last artist impression. It was as if Solum was deliberately giving two contemptuous fingers to our town and the views we have expressed.

The image presented is of a characterless, oversized, carbuncular monstrosity, intended only to swell developer profits, not enhance the beauty of our town.

Imagine waking up to see such a building and then trying to guess where you were: anywhere in the western world, that’s where. It’s just blah, and a big blah at that.

That we wanted a station that reflected vernacular style was made clear at the very first consultation meeting. It was obviously the feeling of most present.

But I suspect that it did not tie in with the briefing Solum initially received from the council planners some years ago. The predilection of Guildford Borough Council’s planning department seems to have been for  a contemporary style of architecture, a prejudice which also dictated the design of the new Waitrose store.

We should not take this lying down. The architecture of our station is important. It might be privately owned these days but it is still an important public building, especially in a town hoping to perform a difficult “modal shift” in the way we move about, a shift that needs more people to use public transport.

In fact, this new proposal does will do nothing it to improve the functionality of the station, obvious evidence of the commercial priority at play.

In any case, we should have a station that reflects the historic importance of the railway to Guildford. We might not be a railway town like Swindon, York or Darlington but the railway has been very important to Guildford since its arrival in 1845; it has had a huge impact and was the biggest single factor in the growth of the town to its present size.

Despite that growth our Victorian forefathers still managed to retain and create more style in the town than we have been able to in the post-war period when many of the planning decisions taken were shockingly bad.

They achieved this with some shameless copying of past architectural styles that would today be dismissed by trendy architects as pastiche. Well they should think harder and listen more to popular opinion. Where are the buildings from the late 20th century that we can imagine being cherished in 100 years time?

I pray that the council will show some backbone and dismiss this latest insult with the scorn it deserves. I would rather see them over-ruled at appeal than come to some dreadful compromise with developers who seem to have commercial interests at heart.

Let the remote planning inspectors, marching to the tune of a Conservative government, dare to inflict this on our Conservative town with its Conservative council. Surely there is only so much of we voters can take before we wake up and actually consider what effect our votes might have.

Oh and if the architects are wondering from where they should draw their inspiration then how about St Pancras or Battle or Huddersfield?

The classical proportions of Huddersfield Station with St George’s Square in the foreground.

Sir John Betjeman wrote in 1960: “Railways were born in England. The early railway architecture of this country is therefore of more than merely national importance. It is the beginning of the whole history of the Railway Age.”

Railway’s are not finished, its heritage, its architecture and its future are still important. And they are important for us who live here, who use or pass by the station and, of course, for our visitors.

Why can’t Guildford help lead a movement away from our recent cheap, unattractive, profit motivated, recent architectural past? Why can’t we build a station of which we can be proud? Even a station to which people will travel just to admire?

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