Woking Approves Sale of Triangle Site and Goldsworth Park

Woking Borough Council has approved the sale of five more property holdings, including the Triangle site by the station and Goldsworth Park Shopping Centre. The Executive took the decisions at its meeting on Wednesday 16 September (printed decisions).

The council says it has now completed or exchanged asset sales totalling £72 million, with a further £54 million under offer (Woking Borough Council, 17 September).

Set that against what the debt costs. The council budgeted £62,606,004 of interest payments for 2026/27 and now forecasts £60,209,233, according to the first-quarter budget monitoring report that went to the same meeting. The completed sales are worth a little over one year of interest.

The five holdings approved on 16 September

• The Triangle site, Guildford Road, GU22 7PF. 0.465 hectares, or 1.15 acres, and more than 80 per cent cleared. Sold freehold to the recommended bidder, whose offer is conditional on planning.
• Goldsworth Park Shopping Centre. Marketed by Green and Partners, with best bids on 23 July and two further rounds on 28 and 31 July. The winning offer was unconditional save for satisfactory title.
• The Threadneedle Block, 63-75 Commercial Way. A freehold retail parade of seven units totalling 9,449 sq ft, let to six retailers with one unit under offer. Agents Hartnell Taylor Cooke sought best bids on 6 August.
• 127-137 Princess Road, GU22 8ER. Six retail units with maisonettes above and garages to the rear, marketed by Seymour’s from mid-April.
• Monument Way West holdings. The Wintonlea light industrial estate, Warwick House, Morrison House, Monument House and an open storage site, sold to two different buyers.

No sale price has been published. Every figure sits in the confidential Part II reports, on the grounds that it is commercially sensitive. That is lawful, and it also means residents cannot yet judge whether the receipts match the book values.

The Triangle sale writes off the Victoria Arch scheme

The Triangle report is the one to read. The report says the council assembled that land to regenerate the area, provide town centre housing and allow for the potential widening of the Victoria Arch railway bridge.

The officer report now states the position plainly. There is “no legal obligation to continue to protect part of the site for the bridge widening scheme”, and Network Rail “has indicated there is no appetite to proceed”. Any scheme to reconstruct the bridge, it says, is “no longer either financially practicable or supported by key stakeholders”.

Two other things in that report matter locally:

• The council does not own all of it. Two smaller landholdings have not been acquired despite attempts, and officers say compulsory purchase powers may be needed to finish the job. An earlier resolution supporting that “will need to be updated/refreshed at the appropriate time”.
• This is the second attempt to sell. A preferred bidder was approved in June 2025, then withdrew in late 2025 after due diligence and meetings with the planning team, over what the report calls perceived planning constraints. Curchod and Seymours were instructed to re-offer the site.

Because the new offer is conditional on planning, the sale is not done. The buyer has to get permission first, and the report says Surrey County Council and Network Rail will be brought in as early consultees at the pre-application stage.

Two council companies are being wound up

The same meeting agreed to dissolve LAC 2021 Ltd, and to wind up Export House Ltd once its leases have transferred to the council and no adverse legal or property implications are found. Both were approved on a recommendation from the Shareholder Executive Committee.

The council also reported that it has recovered £4.22 million so far in 2026/27 through “cash sweeps” from ThamesWey and VSWL, its group companies, under the debt standstill arrangement that has replaced their debt repayments since 2023.

What it means for you

The decisions are not final until 25 September. They take effect on Friday 25 September, and the deadline to call any of them in for scrutiny is Thursday 24 September, five working days after the meeting. Call-in is a councillor process, but residents can raise a decision with their ward councillor before that date.

If you shop at Goldsworth Park, nothing changes immediately. The report says the buyer is expected to invest to complete the lettings in the centre, and the sale is unconditional apart from title, so it should complete rather than drag.

If you live near the Triangle, expect a planning application before anything else happens. When it arrives it will appear on the borough’s planning register, and it is the point at which the public gets a say on what replaces a site that has stood largely empty for years.

On your council tax bill, none of this shows up directly. Capital receipts from selling property cannot be spent on day-to-day services; they go against the debt. The bill itself is set separately, and our council tax bands page explains how it is made up. The larger number is still the government’s £500 million debt repayment package, which we reported on 6 September. The monitoring report says the council has budgeted to receive that relief at 30 September 2026, while the council’s own September announcement said the loans would be repaid by the end of March 2027.

Sources

• Decisions taken by the Executive on Wednesday 16 September 2026, Woking Borough Council, for all five disposal decisions, the two company wind-ups, the effective date and the call-in deadline.
• Major asset sales continue council’s financial recovery, Woking Borough Council newsroom, 17 September 2026, for the £72 million completed and £54 million under offer.
• Report EXE26-055, Asset Disposal - Triangle Site, Woking Centre, published 8 September 2026, for the site area, the withdrawn 2025 bidder, the compulsory purchase point and the Victoria Arch wording.
• Reports EXE26-106, EXE26-108, EXE26-110 and EXE26-068 for the marketing agents, bid dates and property descriptions of Goldsworth Park Shopping Centre, the Threadneedle Block, Princess Road and Monument Way West.
• Report EXE26-036, Budget Monitoring Q1 2026-27, for the interest budget and forecast, the £500 million debt relief timing and the £4.22 million of cash sweeps.