Surrey Council plans 500 homes at Kingston County Hall

Surrey County Council is exploring plans to develop 500 homes at its County Hall site in Kingston. The council announced it would leave the iconic buildings, which have featured in a number of films and TV shows, at the end of 2018. County Hall has been a location for films and shows including Midsomer Murders, Downton Abbey and Call the Midwife. It has been used by the council for 50 years and is home to around 1,500 council staff. Due to local government reorganisation, County Hall is no longer within the administrative county of Surrey, and is now contained within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. Surrey has enlisted Bidwells to develop plans for the repurposing of the Grade II listed County Hall and development of the Bittoms multi-storey car park. The development will include 35% affordable housing on the 6.5-acre site. It will incorporate a flexible use within the 1893 building to enable a mix of civic, education, leisure or community uses. The council is working up plans for a hybrid application, with outline plans for two buildings of up to 17 storeys on the car park. This part of the scheme will include market sale and affordable housing, as well as a private residents’s roof garden and commercial so-called “town-centre” podium with leisure and retail floorspace. The detailed plans will refer to the demotions of the newer buildings around the County Hall site to allow for private rental homes and affordable homes. At the end of 2019, Surrey County Council said it planned to buy Midas House from Woking Borough Council. Surrey said it was progressing plans to sell County Hall and would move all 1,500 employees to the new Woking headquarters. However, in April the council halted the acquisition due to fears that the value would drop following the pandemic. It said it did not want to buy Midas House when values where high and risk selling County Hall when property was cheaper, but said it still intended to move after Covid-19. To send feedback, e-mail emma.rosser@egi.co.uk or tweet @EmmaARosser or @estatesgazette Photo by David Howard / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)