Woking refused Lidl's Quadrant Court store on 4 September. A single-storey shop with a 117-space car park wastes a town centre site, officers ruled.

Woking Borough Council has refused plans for a Lidl supermarket on the site of Quadrant Court, the former Surrey County Council offices on Guildford Road. The refusal notice was issued on Friday 4 September (decision notice).

Officers had no objection to a supermarket there. Their objection was to how little of the site it would use. A single-storey shop with a large surface car park is “an inefficient use of land” so close to Woking station, they ruled.

The application did not go to committee. Officers decided it under delegated powers (officer’s report).

What Lidl wanted to build

The application, PLAN/2026/0380, proposed demolishing Quadrant Court and building:

  • a single-storey Lidl store of 2,184 square metres, with 1,529 square metres of sales floor
  • a car park of 117 spaces, including 8 for disabled drivers, 9 parent and child spaces and 2 with working electric vehicle chargers
  • 26 more spaces wired for chargers later, 3 motorcycle bays and 20 cycle stands
  • a new entrance on York Road and a revised one on Montgomery Road, with deliveries from Montgomery Road only

The site covers about 1.05 hectares between Guildford Road, York Road, Montgomery Road and Mount Hermon Road. It is on the edge of the town centre boundary, but inside it.

Quadrant Court is a part three, part four-storey brick office block from about 1990, built around a central courtyard. Surrey County Council used it until early 2025. The applicant’s planning statement, quoted in the report, says the county sold the site in March 2025 and moved to Victoria Gate in the town centre.

The three reasons for refusal

The decision notice gives three reasons:

  1. Inefficient use of land. The site is in the town centre, within walking distance of the station and several bus routes. The notice says it “is capable of accommodating more development, for example a comprehensive mixed-use scheme involving a supermarket and housing.”
  2. Drainage. Surrey’s lead local flood authority kept its objection through three responses, the last on 4 September. The notice says there was “insufficient justification” for leaving out features such as green roofs, rain gardens and swales.
  3. No legal agreement. Without a signed section 106 agreement, nothing secured the off-site highway works Surrey County Council wanted. Nor did anything secure a payment towards the legal minimum 10% biodiversity net gain.

The second and third reasons are about missing detail and a missing agreement. The first goes to the design itself. The report says the store is “purpose built” and “could not easily lend itself to future upward extensions”.

Bar chart: the existing Quadrant Court office block has about 6,160 square metres of floor space against 2,184 for the proposed Lidl store; by 4 September the council had 93 objections, 65 comments in support and 3 neutral

Why officers said the site would be wasted

The scheme would remove 3,973 square metres of floor space spread over three and four storeys. It would replace it with 2,184 square metres on one floor. On the report’s own figures, that puts the existing building at about 6,160 square metres.

Officers leaned heavily on the new National Planning Policy Framework, published in August 2026. It supports higher densities within walking distance of a well-connected station. It also says schemes that do not make efficient use of land should be refused.

To show the scale, the report works out what the site could hold as housing alone. At the framework’s minimum of 45 homes per hectare, that is about 45 homes. The report adds that the number “may reasonably be higher still” given the location.

The council does not currently have a five-year supply of housing land. The report says that makes a denser scheme on this site “especially important”.

Officers also pointed to a way through. “If a supermarket was acceptable on this site, this could still be achieved,” the report says, “but with the addition of further airspace development.” In plain terms, that means a supermarket with homes above it.

The report notes that Lidl’s application never argued it was an efficient use of the land. It says the submission fell “altogether silent on this matter”.

What officers accepted

The refusal was narrow. Officers accepted several things Lidl needed:

  • Losing the offices. Lambert Smith Hampton marketed the building from May 2024 to March 2025. The applicant’s statement says “no interest or offers were received”. Officers called the marketing report “detailed” and accepted a shop as a replacement town centre use.
  • A supermarket in the town centre. No retail impact assessment or sequential test was needed.
  • The roads. Surrey County Council, as highway authority, did not object, subject to off-site highway works.
  • Noise and contamination. Environmental health raised no objection on noise. The contaminated land officer and Thames Water did not object either.

There is one oddity. The site’s 2021 allocation, policy UA34, earmarks it for 1,000 square metres of extra office space and does not require any retail. Officers set that aside once they had accepted the marketing evidence.

161 comments, most of them against

By 4 September the council had received 161 comments: 93 objections, 65 in support and 3 that were neither.

Supporters said:

  • Woking needs another affordable supermarket that people can walk to
  • residents currently travel to Guildford or Brooklands to reach a Lidl
  • the empty building risks becoming an eyesore
  • the store would bring jobs

Objectors said:

  • York Road and Mount Hermon Road are residential streets already used as a cut-through
  • deliveries, noise and lighting would affect neighbouring homes
  • the site would be better used for housing, or kept as offices
  • a store with a large car park would draw shoppers away from the town centre

Several objectors disputed a figure, attributed to Lidl, that 75% of people supported the store. The report records the complaint. We have not seen the survey behind the figure.

What happens next

Lidl can appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. For a refused planning application the deadline is six months from the date of the decision notice, so early March 2027 (GOV.UK). It could also submit a revised scheme. Nothing on the council’s file yet shows which it will do.

What it means for you

  • No Lidl is coming to Quadrant Court under this plan. The office block stays empty for now.
  • If you live on York Road, Mount Hermon Road or Montgomery Road, watch the application record for an appeal or a new application.
  • Any new scheme gets its own consultation. Our guide to Woking planning applications explains how to find and comment on one.
  • The bigger picture of town centre schemes is in our Woking planning news.

Sources