More Units Added to Solums’s Station Redevelopment

Published on: 24 Dec, 2024
Updated on: 24 Dec, 2024

CGI view of apartment blocks from the front of the station. Image Solum Regeneration/ Guildford Borough Council

By Emily Dalton

local democracy reporter

Another 65 new apartments will be added to a development in Guildford town centre, already under construction.

The controversial £150 million scheme to build 438 homes next to Guildford railway station, dubbed by critics as “The Great Wall of Guildford”, was given the green light in 2018, on appeal, by a planning inspector despite its unanimous rejection by GBC’s Planning Committee.

The project is led by Solum Regeneration, a consortium partnership between Network Rail and Kier Property responsible for several station redevelopments. It was over a decade ago, in August 2014, that the plans were first introduced.

Solum has proposed to increase the number of homes from 438 to 503 by changing the internal layouts in four out of the five of the buildings. The heights of the buildings will stay the same, between eight and 10 storeys.

Officers at Guildford Borough Council approved the application to increase the dwellings by 65 on Friday (December 20), using their delegated powers. Currently, work on the new station phase of the project is meant to begin in 2025 with plans to double the height of the ticket hall and increasing its passenger capacity.

The car park block is the latest part of the Solum Guildford station project to have materialised.

The new proposals “will deliver a range of substantial social, economic and environmental benefits” to Guildford town centre, according to planning documents submitted by the developers. They added the plans would “optimise” the site by delivering an additional 65 homes “within the same bulk, scale or massing and building height” as the existing approved scheme.

One of the blocks of flats will see 41 added to the building, whereas another will have just one extra included. Block E, which has already been built, will still have 98 homes. No changes have been made to the size of commercial spaces in the proposed buildings, but the shop and accommodation entrances have been altered.

Six more affordable homes will be added to the development as part of the plans, taking the total number to 51. The council’s policy dictates that affordable housing should make up 40 per cent of proposed developments. Although Solum’s financial viability report stated the scheme would make a loss at having just 10 per cent of affordable homes, the developer still agreed to provide the housing.

Despite adding a further 65 homes, increasing the units by almost 15 per cent, the updated plans will not significantly change how financially feasible the Guildford Station scheme is as a whole, according to Solum.

CGI view of apartment blocks from the southern end of Platform 8 of Guildford Station. Image Solum Regeneration/ Guildford Borough Council

Objecting to the scheme, the Guildford Society claims it will be a “damaging development” due to the mass, scale and impact on the station. The civic group argued the new application should be considered alongside the previous scheme and there should be a new financial viability assessment.

The Society also claimed the developer has “failed to deliver the housing it committed to the government inspector” at the planning appeal. Single one-bedroom apartments have almost doubled under the revised plans from 113 to 225, and the amount of three-bedroom units have been cut by over a third (from 14 to 9).

But the developer states the change in housing mix is “reflective of the market needs of a town centre location” and makes the most efficient use of land and contribution to the housing need.

No additional car parking is being proposed at the site. Part of the original application, a multi-storey car park of 633 spaces, will also be accessible for residents next to the train station.

See planning application here.