The Society hopes all are keeping safe and well during the Pandemic.

Guildford Society Design Awards 2020

The judging panel for the Guildford Society Design Awards 2020 has now selected and reviewed a longlist of finalists, including site visits.

The judging panel is now agreeing the winners in each of the categories no easy task!!

The panel was heartened by the diversity and quality of this year’s entries reflecting the good developments happening in the Borough. All categories apart from one were well represented.  Sadly, we had no commercial buildings submitted for judging this year.  

Today we publish the longlist entries in their categories.   Click on this link.

We are keen to celebrate the quality of good design in the borough and  are currently considering the best way of holding a awards event for the winners.  We hope to hold a small socially distanced event in the autumn which will be livestreamed and/or recorded for a wider audience.

85th Annual General Meeting

The Covid 19 social distancing requirements and a limitation on numbers permitted to attend public gatherings have made it increasingly difficult to hold face-to-face meetings such as the Society’s AGM.

We therefore announce our intention to hold the 85^th AGM virtually. 

Full details and our annual report can be found here 

Feedback on our proposals on the Debenhams site. 

We have had a good response on our ideas for the Debenhams Site.  Special thanks to Guildford Arts who circulated their members with our ideas.  The proposal was also published on the Guildford Dragon where it was one of the top articles by number of hits. 

We are heartened that we have prompted discussion on this important site.

We will consider the comments received and issue a summary shortly with a commentary.  

Please Read More on our ideas

Planning

The society has responded to the Guildford Borough Local Plan: Development Management Policies  that provides the policy ‘teeth’ for the Local Plan; Strategic Sites agreed in 2019.

The society believes the LPDMP is a weak document lacking good policy in the areas of

Housing delivery where clear Density and Scale criteria need establishing

Design policies must have more ambition; including providing further standards for development as is done by other local authorities. The lack of policies for converting buildings is especially concerning, as we would like to see conversion of commercial to residential taking place in future.

Please read our full response