Central Godalming Regeneration Project

The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated that working from home can be effective and in future, some form of hybrid working will be the norm. This means that the council will require significantly fewer workspaces in its headquarters. It is vital that the council takes a holistic view of its property assets, so that it can maximise their value and provide the necessary offices as well as support housing delivery and economic development in Godalming.

Planned redevelopment of the three sites will create a modern, energy efficient office building with a smaller footprint, as well as delivering residential housing (market and affordable) to fund the redevelopment and provide a future revenue stream. This also has the potential to regenerate an underutilised part of the town centre and bring an economic uplift to the area.

There is no plan to move the council’s HQ out of Godalming. This project is about replacing the outdated building and looking at how we can maximise the value of our land assets to fund the redevelopment, generate future income and deliver housing and economic growth locally.

In 2018 the Council commissioned a report from Lambeth Smith Hampton regarding the options for three Waverley Borough Council owned and one Surrey County Council owned sites in Godalming, using funding from the One Public Estate. One Public Estate funding is based on the principles of collaboration with other areas of local government and public services, to essentially save space, in order to bring forward regeneration and specifically, housing.

This report outlines the existing picture in 2018 and suggested a number of options for the sites including the library site. The report recognises the need to complete refurbishment works to the existing Burys building and offers development solutions to support this.

The findings of the report were not progressed by the current (post 2019 local elections) administration as they fundamentally disagreed with the way the project had been scoped. In particular they have ruled out any sale of public land to private developers.

The project has now evolved and moved away from the initial report, a comprehensive public engagement programme on the options has been undertaken by the Council over the last few months, the results of which can be seen in our latest presentation.

At the Council meeting in December 2022, a motion regarding the new Godalming Town Centre Regeneration Project was passed, (by 25 votes for, 14 against and 2 abstentions), which included that this report should now be published. A copy of the report can be found via this link. Please be aware the report is redacted in some places, in order to protect information that remains commercially sensitive.