Guildford Station Solum Development

Guildford Station Redevelopment

The site is allocated for a comprehensive mixed use redevelopment to

include:

(1) Approximately 438 homes (C3)

(2) Approximately 2,838sqm of retail, financial & professional service,

food and drink and leisure (A1/A2/A3)

(3) Approximately 1,635sqm of office space (B1/Sui Generis)

Requirements

(1) Improved transport and interchange facilities

(2) The station has its primary access from Walnut Tree Close. Any

redeveloped scheme for this site must cater for all of the following:

(a) Pedestrians, including those crossing from the west side of

the railway via the present station footbridge

(b) Cyclists

(d) Taxis

(e) Drop-off (‘kiss and ride’)

(f) Short-stay car parking

(g) Long-stay car parking

(3) Site layout to focus on ensuring that pedestrians and cyclists are

directed towards use of Walnut Bridge

when travelling to the town centre

(4) Site layout will be compatible with the proposals for the

Sustainable Movement Corridor

(5) Consideration of strategic long distant views including setting of

listed buildings on skylines and views in and out of nearby

conservation areas

(6) Achieve flood risk betterment, appropriate mitigation and flood risk

management

Opportunities

(1) This is a previously developed site, with strong transport links, in

the town centre. This should not be to the detriment of the character of the area

(2) Improve green infrastructure provision on site to help improve the

character of the area,

Current Status

Solum Ltd after a long planning process, including an appeal, finally got plans approved as laid out in 14/P/02168 which was approved after appeal in Feb 2018. Building started just before the Covid crisis and during 2020 limited progress was made. Work is now fully underway, starting with the provison of the multi-storey car park.

The Solum scheme details can be seen at the Solum Website in summary form.

During 2020 an agreement with Grainger Ltd has effectively sold part of the development, the northernmost Block E, as a ‘Build to Rent’ scheme. Grainger are one of the UK's largest specialist landlords in this growing sector of the market..

Currently Solum are exploring changing the rest of the scheme to raise the number of dwellings see 21/S/00003 on the GBC Webiste. The Society has recently received a letter outlining changes it is not expected that the profile of the buildings will change

The changes, if consented will increase the number of dwellings on the site by circa 15%. The changes are in the table below with Block E added at the bottom although now owned by Grainger. There is no current information that indicates that Grainger are going to propose changes to Block E.

Block	Land Use	Use class	Quantum (2016 approved)	Quantum (2021 proposed)	Change
A1	Residential	C3	51 units	52 units	+1 unit
A1	Station retail, retail service and food and drink	A1/A2/A 3	2/3 units	2/3 units	No change
A2	Residential	C3	78 units	93 units	+15 units
	Station retail, retail service and food and drink	A1/A2/A 3	3 units	3 units	No change
	Station office	B1/Sui Generis			No change
	Station Improvement	Sui Generis			No Change
B/C	Residential	C3	73 Units	81 Units	+8 Units
B/C	Station Retail, retail service, food and drink and leisure	A1/A2/A3/D2	¾ Units	¾ Units	No Change
D	Residential	C3	138 Units	179 Units	+41 Units
Total Residential Solum			340 Units	405 Units	+65 Units
E	Residential Block to be owned by Grainger	C3	98 Units	98 Units	No Change has been proposed as at 23-6-2021
Total Residential for Site			438 Units	503 Units	+65 Units.

It will be interesting to understand the following:

Is Solum proposing changes to the external building appearance, particularly height. The mass and scale of the Solum scheme, as consented is probably non-compliant with the Town Centre Views SPD adopted post the planning approval.
The site allocation in the Local Plan of 438 dwellings is to be increased by 15%. Is this a material uplift for the site?
Does it impact infrastructure provision? It is noted that various statutory bodies have only commented on the Solum blocks not the site as a whole.

Guildford Station Redevelopment

Current Status

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