Reigate and Banstead Council explores car park redevelopment for social housing
Plans for affordable homes raised amid green belt concerns
Town centre car parks could be used for social housing in an effort to avoid “concreting over green belt” chasing “unattainable” targets.
Reigate and Banstead Borough Council is to examine options to redevelop Gloucester Road car park in Redhill that will prioritise 60 new affordable and social rent flats.
It will also seek out a developer to take on a similar project for 40 homes on the High Street car park in Horley.
The costs of the two projects have yet to be revealed but will require final approval by the newly created East Surrey Council – which has to sign off any deals worth more than £1m.
The council feels this project would create more affordable homes than would be possible on the open market. The parking spaces would be retained.
Housing is extremely challenging for residents with the house prices in the area standing at about 10 times average incomes.
The council said it has also seen approaches for homelessness support rise from 1,385 in 2022/23 to more than 1,900 in 2024/25.
Councillor Ben Green, portfolio holder for finance and assets told the September executive committee that the council wanted to focus on deliverable projects before the borough was liquidated into East Surrey.
He said: “We’ve been talking a long time about this council’s contribution to our housing targets, particularly since it has been ballooned by the Labour Government, and particularly for the need for more affordable housing in the borough.
“If developed these sites have the possibility of adding significant housing and affordable housing to the borough without loss of amenity.”
Questions were raised about the impact of adding 60 homes to the Gloucester Road site and a further 40 in Horley – given the car parks were already heavily used.
For example Horley is utilised by three local schools for school drop-off and pick-up on weekdays.
Cllr Blacker said: “I’m very concerned about these sales and the manner in which we sell them.
“Just looking at the Horley car spark its got 86 car parking spaces and we’re going to put 40 homes on it, so that would really need 126 parking spaces.
“And the same with the Gloucester Road car park, 285 car parking spaces and…there are lorries parking there regularly.
“That’s 60 homes, so once again we are looking at about 345 parking spaces that will be needed.
He added: “I’ve said it so many times, and I’m sure everybody is sick of hearing it, but we are building a problem for our successors with absolutely nowhere to park.”
Cllr Green replied: “Fundamentally I agree. It would be lovely if we had vast swathes of brownfield land that we could build thousands of lovely affordable flats on, each with their own car parking space, but the reality is we don’t, we have to use the space we do have available to us.
“The housing target that has been put upon us by the government is essentially, deliberately, unattainable.
“The best we can do is to find these kinds of brownfield sites.
“The only other alternative is we go start concreting over the greenbelt.”