Scheme could have affordable housing reduced

A 1,500-home development could have its affordable housing reduced “as an absolute last resort” as Guildford Borough Council attempts to cut a £50m-plus deficit.

The Weyside Urban Village (WUV) regeneration plans to make 600 (40%) of the homes affordable. Outline planning permission for the £453m project was granted in October 2021.

A potential deficit at the project’s end has jumped to over £50m due to high inflation and rises in borrowing rates.

Councillor Tom Hunt, deputy leader of the council, said cutting the number of affordable homes is “absolutely not a lever [the council] wants to pull”, but for the sake of the complete review of the situation “it must be an option”.

Various options to reduce the deficit were presented to the resources overview and scrutiny committee meeting on Monday, with reducing the number of affordable homes floated as a “last resort”.

Other methods included borrowing from different boards, using money from asset sales, quickly selling land to developers, long-term lending and reviewing the council’s major development programme, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Councillor Richard Mills said that changing the number of affordable homes “defeats the objective of the programme".

Any such reduction would require a planning application, taking a year to complete, and Homes England would also need to be notified that the original business case had changed.

Mr Hunt added that the council’s target was to get the deficit to zero; if this could not be achieved there would be an annual impact on its budget with interest and paying debt on the money spent on the WUV project.

He said the council had six months to decide how it would cover the deficit.

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