Woking Asset Sale

Published on: 20 Mar, 2026
Updated on: 24 Mar, 2026

The HiltonHotel in Woking Google

By Chris Caulfield

local democracy reporter

Woking Borough Council sell-off off its flagship regeneration projects – including the town’s new Hilton Hotel and shopping centres to private investors to claw back public money – has been branded a “sad” and “sobering” reality of the bankruptcy.

The Woking news comes as the legacy debt issue, ie what will happen to the large outstanding debts from Woking, Runnymede and Surrey councils, has still to be resolved, only one month away from the West Surrey Council elections.

Woking’s small borough council, previously under Conservative control, gained infamy when it went bust in 2023 as the most heavily indebted borough in the country.

It has dragged itself through huge job cuts and service reductions to address its £2.6 billion black hole and now come some of its costliest investments.

The current Lib Dem leadership has agreed to put up for sale Victoria Square, Wolsey Place, Alexander House and ThamesWey Central Milton Keynes in an effort to claw back some of the public money lost through its misguided investment into doomed ventures between 2016 and 2019.

Cllr Dale Roberts

Speaking at the Wednesday, March 18, Executive Committee, was the portfolio holder for Finance, Cllr Dale Roberts (Lib Dem, St John’s).

He said: “The work of understanding and unravelling the council’s commercial structures has weighed heavily at times and that is in large part because of the scale of what we inherited.

“Hundreds of millions of pounds of public money invested through complex commercial structures.

“At times it has felt like we’ve been asked to work on the world’s most expensive jigsaw puzzle.

“Being able to bring these matters forward openly, with proper governance and transparency is therefore both a relief and a sign of the progress the council has made.

“It quickly became clear the first task was not to make immediate decisions about assets and companies but to ensure we had the right governance, reporting, controls in place to understand what we owned and how those companies and those assets were performing.”

Victoria Square Woking, including the Hilton Hotel where the council paid for its cutlery, will be sold off – although the car parks will be split off and retained by the council.

Wolsey Place Shopping Centre, together with Wolsey Walk residential units, Alexander House and Export House, and units owned by Victoria Square will be combined into another single entity to maximise value.

The council’s energy company – which supplies exclusive power to Victoria Square, will also be sold – with officers confident a specialist company could successfully fold the firm into an existing operation.

A key element in the Thameswey sale is a debt for equity swap that will convert the council’s existing loans into shares but banks a historic loss of about £42 million associated with the investment.

Cllr Steve Greentree

Cllr Steve Greentree (Libe Dem, Knaphill) said: “It’s sad to see the £42 million loss in a venture that should never have been put at risk by a local borough council in a geography that is no way related to Woking.