Hester's Yard, Wood Street: 50 Homes Back After 2024 Refusal

Fifty homes at Hester’s Yard in Wood Street Village should get planning permission, Guildford Borough Council’s officers say. Half would be affordable. The scheme also includes a new office, chamber and workshop for Worplesdon Parish Council.

A planning inspector dismissed an almost identical scheme on the same site on 15 November 2024. The report calls the two schemes very similar. What has changed is national planning policy.

The borough’s Planning Committee decides the application, 25/P/00903, on Thursday 1 October at 7pm in the council chamber at Millmead House (agenda). It is there because 26 objections came in against a recommendation to approve.

What Bewley Homes wants to build

The site is about 4.6 hectares off Oak Hill, the road through Wood Street Village, about three miles west of Guildford town centre. The front 0.6 hectares sits inside the village. The back four hectares are Green Belt. The yard is now mostly run-down business units, with four homes, and many units are empty (officers’ report).

The application from Bewley Homes includes:

• 50 homes, all two storeys, of which 25 would be affordable
• 17 of the affordable homes for social rent and 8 for shared ownership, the tenure the council’s housing team asked for
• a parish building with a council chamber and hall, parish offices, and offices and a workshop to let
• 2.86 hectares of public open space, with a play area
• 84 allocated parking spaces, 15 garages and a car club space

This is how the 50 homes break down by size, according to the report:

Why the answer changed after two years

The 2024 scheme was application 22/P/01371: 50 homes, a parish office and hall, and open space. The council refused it and the inspector dismissed the appeal. The report says the only reason was harm to the Green Belt.

The inspector found “substantial harm” to the Green Belt’s openness in spatial terms and “significant harm” in visual terms. The benefits were “substantial and significant”, the inspector said, but did not clearly outweigh that harm.

Since then the government has created grey belt: Green Belt land that is previously developed, or that does not strongly serve three of the Green Belt’s purposes. Homes on grey belt are not automatically “inappropriate” if they meet four tests. The officers conclude that Hester’s Yard passes all four:

• It is grey belt. Wood Street is a village, not a large built-up area, and much of the site is already developed, so it adds little to keeping Guildford apart from Ash and Tongham.
• There is unmet need. The council can show only 2.98 years of housing land supply against the five years national policy requires.
• It is in a sustainable location, by the officers’ assessment, although they accept residents will still need a car.
• It meets the “golden rules” that grey belt schemes must follow, including the 50% affordable housing.

Having passed those tests, the scheme “should not be regarded as harmful to the Green Belt”, the report says. That removes the objection that sank the 2024 appeal.

We have covered how much of the borough’s Green Belt now counts as grey belt. Hester’s Yard is the kind of site that analysis pointed to.

What the parish council and objectors say

Worplesdon Parish Council supports the scheme. It says it is “saddened” that existing businesses will be affected, but calls the site “an eyesore” through lack of investment. It currently leases offices on a business park outside the parish. It has looked for somewhere affordable inside the parish for 22 years, the report says.

The parish council wants the S106 legal agreement to hand it the freehold of the new building and about five acres of meadow for £1. It also asks for a safe crossing at the brow of Oak Hill for Wood Street Infant School.

The 26 objections include some from current and former tenants of the yard. Their points include:

• the scheme is still inappropriate in the Green Belt, and the 2024 appeal should settle it
• it would mean losing a local employment site, with businesses employing about 15 people and more than 30 seasonal staff
• Wood Street already has a hall at St Alban’s Church, so a new parish building is not needed
• the on-demand bus is unreliable, so new residents will depend on cars
• extra pressure on GP surgeries, schools and drainage

Officers note that when they visited on 11 February 2026, most of the businesses had already left. They still give “significant weight” to losing a locally significant employment site. They conclude the benefits “clearly and demonstrably outweigh” the harm.

Three letters of support were received. Guildford Bike Users Group welcomed the affordable housing. It said its support depended on cycling improvements, including traffic calming on Broad Street.

What the developer would pay

If the scheme is approved, a S106 agreement would cover the affordable housing, the parish building and the open space. It would also carry payments towards local services. The report sets out these requests:

• £235,983 for primary school places
• £225,452 for secondary school places
• £100,000 for the on-demand bus service, paid as £20,000 a year from the 20th home onwards
• £48,139 for early years places
• £16,348.42 for Surrey Police

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The parish council asked for the education money to go to Wood Street Infant School and Worplesdon Primary. Officers replied that the county’s education team decides where it is spent.

If the S106 is not signed within 12 months of the committee’s vote, officers could refuse the application.

Also on Thursday’s agenda

Two other items on the same agenda will interest people in Guildford town:

• St Peter’s Catholic School, Merrow (24/P/00808). A two-storey extension with a drama studio, PE classroom and changing rooms, plus an all-weather pitch with eight 15-metre floodlights. The pitch could be used until 8pm Monday to Thursday, 5pm on Fridays and weekends, and never on bank holidays. There were 84 objections and 98 letters of support. Officers recommend approval (report).
• Guildford Boat House, Millbrook (25/P/00996). Soulspace, which runs the riverside boathouses as a workspace and events venue, has asked to remove a condition banning outdoor speakers. The application is retrospective: the report says outdoor sound equipment has already been used. Twenty-four neighbours objected, several saying music could be heard in their homes with the windows shut. Officers do not recommend removing the condition. They propose rewording it: no live music outside, amplified or not, and live music inside capped at 53dBA at the nearest homes (report).

What it means for you

• If you live in Wood Street or Worplesdon: the committee can go against its officers. The meeting is webcast, and the agenda page links to the stream.
• If you are on the housing register: 25 affordable homes, 17 of them for social rent, would be a sizeable addition for a village of this size. None could be built before the S106 agreement is signed and the planning conditions are met.
• If you are watching Green Belt sites near you: here a scheme dismissed at appeal in 2024 has returned with an officer recommendation to approve, on the strength of grey belt policy alone. Watch whether councillors accept that reasoning.

Other live applications are on our planning applications page.

Sources: Guildford Borough Council, Planning Committee agenda, 1 October 2026; officers’ report on 25/P/00903, Hester’s Yard; officers’ report on 24/P/00808, St Peter’s School; officers’ report on 25/P/00996, Guildford Boat House.