Surrey Regeneration One Step Closer to Reality

Plans to regenerate Guildford’s North Street are a step closer to reality, though councillors are warning this is “the beginning of the journey rather than the end”.

Guildford Borough Council’s executive met on Thursday (February 25) to agree high-level designs for a new bus station and the pedestrianisation of North Street, in order to allow an exchange of contracts on the sale of council land to developer St Edward.

The plans for the site, which has been put aside for residential development in the borough council’s local plan, include a new bus station accessed from Leapale Road and closing Woodbridge Road and Commercial Road to through traffic.

Negotiations on the sale of the land started with the developer in July 2019, and a working group has met three times including representatives from the developer, the borough council, Surrey County Council, Stagecoach and the Guildford business representatives among others.

The works will be paid for by the developer, and for the refurbished bus interchange the budget is £4.0m and for the pedestrianisation of North Street £1.4m.

Councillor John Rigg (Residents for Guildford and Villages, Holy Trinity), lead councillor for regeneration, said the developer needed to know what they were being asked to provide before signing up to commitments such as a land purchase.

He said: “If we exchange contracts to sell the land, then a much more detailed specification will come back during the course of negotiations.

“So it’s the beginning of the journey, rather than the end of the journey.”

Later in the meeting he added that once the agreement was signed it all of the proposals would go through the normal planning process.

Council leader Joss Bigmore (Residents for Guildford and Villages, Christchurch) answered questions from Councillor Tony Rooth (Residents for Guildford and Villages, Pilgrims) about detailed plans for the bus station, confirming that the preference for the council was that all buses would go in and out of the north end of the new bus station.

He said this would be discussed further down the line, and have to be agreed by the county council and bus operators, but he hoped the plans would deliver more than “just painting the existing bus station”.

He added: “I prefer buses to be on the road full of passengers rather than sat stationary in stands.

“So I’m sure that there is new ways of thinking about buses that I don’t know about, and maybe you don’t, but the experts will. And as part of any planning application, that will come forward.”