Developers submit request to Elmbridge Borough Council for around 150 homes on a garden centre

Hill Park Roses Garden Centre, which has been family-run since 1968, is still operating on the site. A spokesperson from the rose nursery said they are “not obliged to say” whether the garden centre has been sold or not.

Developer Taylor Wimpey is notable for its massive development project for 1,700 homes on the former Wisley Airfield in Ockham. Its next potential potential development scheme could see the garden centre flattened with over a hundred new homes built on the edge of the Kingston bypass and Woodstock Lane.

Details on the proposal are scarce, but planning documents indicated the new homes will be a mixture of apartments and houses, from one to five beds, and could be up to three storeys tall. Planning documents reveal the village green, the local nature reserve Stokes Field, and One Tree Hill will be kept as green space but the developer will add environmental enhancements.

Up to 50 per cent of the proposed new-builds could be affordable, outline planning documents state. Elmbridge council was told to plan for more affordable housing by the Planning Inspector last year.

The proposed development site covers approximately 11 hectares of land and comprises fields of grassland, scrubs, hedgerows, mature trees and woodland along with the garden centre, documents state.

The developer has asked Elmbridge Borough Council for a formal opinion on what information it should supply for an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) – this is called ‘scoping’- ahead of a planning application.

It will check if the proposed development is likely to have a significant environmental impact on the green belt. Any potential harm to the green belt will be judged at the full planning application stage and balanced against the positives of the scheme.

Ambitions for the garden centre to be transformed into homes date back to 2016 when Taylor Wimpey was promoting the site through the council’s emerging local plan.