2 weeks Ago By [email protected] (Joseph Bickle)
A five tower, 456-home development may soon rise in a Surrey town centre. The development, which has been recommended for approval by Epsom & Ewell Borough Council and will be decided by planning bosses this week, also includes a performing arts centre and educational building. The former site SGN Gasworks site in Epsom could see all of its buildings and infrastructure demolished to make way for the homes , a central garden which will be open to the public, as well as the performing arts centre, educational buildings and around 100 car parking spaces, if the plans are approved.
The hybrid planning application, submitted by Zencap Holdings, is seen to be important for the Epsom area, according to Director of Zenith Land - the project's developers - Chris Wilson, who told SurreyLive: " [The development] delivers a large amount of housing for the area; which will go toward Epsom’s housing targets, without getting rid of the valuable green belt. It is also a major brownfield redevelopment scheme in which we will be making use of a previously disused site in the town's centre". Of the proposed 456 homes , according to planning documents; 210 will be one-bedroom, 180 will be two-bedroom, and 66 will be three-bedroom units.
Mr Wilson said 46 of the 456 homes will be social rent units. The plans have been recommended for approval by Epsom and Ewell Borough Council, and a final decision will be made by its planning committee on Thursday, April 24. The 1.
7 hectare site in East Street currently houses five, disused gasholders, the largest of which was built in 1968 and stands at 44 meters tall. Mr Wilson explained the site is "exactly" the right area to develop housing because: "It is a waste of land, (Epsom) is a large town centre site in a borough with huge housing pressure. It is a highly sustainable location with excellent transport links, it is exactly the site needed to develop housing.
" The proposed site is a 10 minute walk from Epsom train station, and an even shorter 3 minute drive. Passengers can reach London Waterloo station in around 35 minutes. Mr Wilson said he estimates the project, if approved, will cost an estimated £125million to deliver and should take around four years to construct.
The creation of a green space in the centre of the development which will be open to the public, will act as a walkway between the Rainbow Leisure Centre and the Hook Road multi-storey car park. Planning documents coin this proposed space as a "green lung" for the area which will provide a "physical and visual amenity for all of the residents and the general public to enjoy". Also included in the planning documents, which will be further detailed in separate planning applications should the 456-home development be approved, is the development of a new facility for the Laine Theatre Arts College.
The current college, which is also based in East Street, was described in planning documents as "at full capacity" and "now inadequate compared to Laine's competition". The development site features in Epsom & Ewell Borough Council's local plan which was submitted in March 2025 and sets out where 4,916 new homes could be built across the borough by 2040. The site has been used as gas works for more than 150 years, according to documents, while a separate application for the same site has stated the storage facility for natural gas “has been permanently decommissioned and purged”.
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