Kier Property is bringing forward proposals to redevelop the Guildhall One office building on St James’s Road in Kingston, transforming it into new high-quality housing.
Welcome
We are undertaking a public consultation with key local stakeholders and the wider community to help shape the plans for the Guildhall 1 site, before submitting a planning application to the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in the coming months.
Please review the information on the panels below and complete the feedback questions.
The public consultation will remain open until Sunday 16th August 2026.
Site plan
The Team
Developer
Architect
Planning Consultant
Heritage
The Site
The site is occupied by a vacant four-storey office building, its appearance representative of the 1970s period when it was constructed.
The existing building is not remarkable in appearance and has been demonstrated to not meet modern-day occupier needs. The comprehensive redevelopment for residential use is earmarked in the emerging Local Plan.
The site is in a central and well-connected location in the heart of the town, perfectly positioned for new residents to benefit from the local facilities on offer. These include the town’s top ranked shopping facilities, extensive services sector, leading schools, further and higher educational institutions, and cultural facilities all within an easy walking distance.
This is complemented by excellent public transport accessibility for bus and train services in the town, along with additional ease of access to Surbiton Station for faster and longer distance mainline rail services.
Development Context
The site is located adjacent to an area which has seen considerable consented and implemented redevelopment in recent years.
The completed Royal Exchange development (1) rises to 16 storeys and there is now a consented 16-storey residential tower at the southern tip of the Unilever site (4).
The main Unilever campus (2) opposite is permitted for up to 9 commercial storeys (circa 39 metres) while 3 St. James’s Road is permitted for 7 storeys (circa 36 metres high). The consent for the redevelopment of the Eden Walk shopping centre (3) was for a maximum of 16 storeys.
In addition, Kingston College is 11 storeys (circa 46 metres high).
The site thus forms part of a highly urbanised town centre environment characterised by larger-scale development.
In this context the site is considered suitable for redevelopment at an appropriately commensurate scale and of exceptional architectural quality.
Planning Policy
There is a significant housing shortfall across the Royal Borough, for both market and affordable homes.
The Council can currently demonstrate a 1.48-year supply of homes against the national requirement for a five-year supply. The site therefore represents an important opportunity to assist with housing delivery in Kingston.
The Local Plan Regulation 19 draft allocation KNK16 identifies the wider Guildhall Estate (which includes Guildhall 1) for a variety of uses including 320 new homes. The wider estate is also a potentially suitable location for tall buildings. The full text of the draft allocation is set out below.
London Plan
Kingston identified as an Opportunity Area for Growth
Kingston is also identified in the Mayor’s London Plan as an opportunity area with potential for 9,000 new homes and 5,000 new jobs by 2041.
Design Principles
Masterplan vision
A building that sets a benchmark and framework for the optimal redevelopment of the wider Guildhall site, including setting the quality bar very high, with good access routes and servicing.
Enhance townscape and heritage
Create a building that outwardly enhances the significance of the historic townscape setting and through its massing, form and architectural expression complements the existing and emerging townscape context, with enduring materiality reflecting Kingston’s heritage.
Exceptional design
Create an exemplar in housing design with high quality accommodation, access to generous private and shared amenity and play space and a meticulous attention to architectural detail.
Environmental exemplar
Mitigate the demolition of the existing building through reuse and recycling, along with avoiding a carbon-intensive basement and adopting low carbon materials and high fabric performance.
Street level activity
Create an engaging experience at street level through commercial space, residential entrance and cycle storage, that complements circulation and adjacent plots and promotes an active, accessible, vibrant and safe space.
Public realm & urban greening
Create new public spaces that enhance the street level experience through new shared outdoor spaces, tree- planting and soft-landscaping.
New public space and cafe at ground level
Our Proposals
The proposed building will contain up to 16 storeys at its maximum, although this will step down to nine storeys at an intermediate level.
The proposal will match the height of Royal Exchange and the consent at Lever House.
Landscaping
The vision is to create a high-quality landscape which celebrates the adjacent Grade II Listed Guildhall and creates a more welcoming access to this historic building from St James’s Road.
The landscape design honours the Guildhall with its strong radial curves and bold banding and play features that echo the Guildhall’s archiving use.
At ground, street tree planting and rain gardens have been positioned along St James’s Road to create a more welcoming pedestrian environment and help with drainage. There will also be hedge planting up against the building to provide further greening.
The southern street is also enhanced with tree planting and planting beds either side of a small play trail with engraving to reflect the Guildhall’s archiving use. There is also a space for some outdoor café seating to the southwest. The wider ambition is for this road to become a shared surface and that the existing gate would be replaced by retractable bollards to enable this.
To the north there will be a shady biodiverse pocket garden where residents and the public can enjoy a quieter, cooler space.
Where possible permeable paving will be used to help with sustainable drainage.
At terrace level, there will be two communal terraces with planting in raised planters, small trees and in-built benches positioned to enjoy the wider views of the city and the Guildhall. The larger terrace will also include play elements such as play paths in between planting and a play platform that will double up as a viewing platform. This play structure’s form and character will reflect the Guildhall’s archiving function and it will be engraved to illustrate this.
At upper roof level there will be a biodiverse wildflower roof to provide additional greening, drainage and enhance biodiversity at roof level.
Sustainability
The project is designed to meet exceptionally high environmental standards, focusing on cutting carbon emissions, minimising waste, boosting local nature, and ensuring long-term energy efficiency. Here is how we are achieving this across five key areas:
Passive Design Principles
Implement a fabric-first approach, reducing the energy demand using passive measures before relying on low carbon and renewable energy sources:
- Super-insulated and airtight building fabric to keep the heat in during the winter.
- Balanced window-to-wall ratios, to allow natural daylight without letting in too much winter cold or summer heat.
- Fresh Air & Temperature Control: High-efficiency mechanical ventilation systems with heat recovery (MVHR) will capture and reuse heat from outgoing air.
- Glazing with solar control properties.
- Natural ventilation via openable windows will be the primary source of summer cooling. The MVHR and integrated heat pump will be reversible, to provide energy efficient tempering of the supply air during prolonged summer heatwaves.
Demolishing and Rebuilding
We carefully evaluated whether we could reuse the current building, but it is simply too inefficient:
Poor Energy Performance
The current building is energy inefficient. Trying to upgrade it to meet modern standards would require extreme, invasive, and costly modifications, that would still be inferior to a modern, energy-efficient building.
Climate Change Risk
Even with major upgrades, a refurbished older building would still struggle to stay comfortable and will be vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
Minimising Carbon Emissions
We are tackling carbon from two angles:
Operational Carbon
The building is targeting net zero operational carbon. The on-site carbon reduction will be at least 35% better than Building Regulations. Any shortfall to net zero will be offset via the carbon offset fund. Carbon calculations to be made using sophisticated building modelling.
Embodied Carbon
We are strictly limiting the embodied carbon footprint of the development, in line with the GLA targets. We are achieving that by re-using and recycling existing materials on site, designing for material efficiency and specifying materials with environmental credentials and low carbon content.
Applying Circular Economy Principles
- Zero biodegradable or recyclable waste going to landfill sites.
- We aim to recycle 65% of everyday municipal waste. For the construction stage, we are targeting a 95% reuse or recycling rate for all construction, demolition, and excavation materials.
- The building will feature easily accessible, separate storage spaces to make recycling and composting seamless for occupants.
Enhancing Biodiversity
We aren’t just protecting biodiversity, we are actively improving it:
10% Biodiversity Net Gain
We aim for a minimum 10% increase in local biodiversity compared to the original site. If any existing habitats are disrupted, they will be carefully replaced or repaired.
Urban Greening
We are introducing significant green elements, aiming for high “greening scores” across the residential and ground floor commercial areas. The development will aim to meet the London Plan Urban Greening Factor score of 0.4 required for predominantly residential developments
Movement & Transport
The site layout is designed to encourage sustainable movement first and prioritise access for pedestrians and cyclists, via active frontages onto St James’s Road with pedestrian access points for residential and commercial uses as well as for cycle storage.
This design approach will also facilitate access to the comprehensive bus and rail connections in the vicinity, noting the site PTAL score of 6A.
The site will be developed on a ‘car-free’ basis. However, disabled parking will be provided in accordance with London Plan standards.
It is currently proposed to service the site from its western flank with vehicular access gained via the internal Guildhall one-way route, including for regular deliveries and refuse collection purposes.
The positioning of the service bay will allow for ease of access to the refuse store to the northwest of the building and access doors that lead to the residential entrance.
Provision of such a service bay will also be subject to liaison with the wider Guildhall development team, noting the existing presence of parking bays in this location.
Cycle parking is intended to be delivered within a dedicated store to the northeast of the building, and discussions are ongoing regarding a supplementary shared and enhanced store for the wider Guildhall complex, located to the north.
Emergency vehicle access into the Guildhall complex from St James’s Road is to be maintained to the south of the building and fronted by the proposed new public realm space.
About Kier Property
Kier Property invests in and develops sites across the UK – acting as a mixed-use commercial and residential developer specialising in urban regeneration, last mile logistics and modern sustainable office developments.
Have your say
Timeline
- MARCH First Pre-Application meeting with the Council
- JUNE Second Pre-Application meeting with the Council
- JULY Presentation to the Kingston Design Review Panel
- 16 JULY Public Exhibition
- JULY – AUGUST Ongoing Public Consultation and Stakeholder Meetings
- END SEPTEMBER Submission of the Planning Application (TBC)
- FEBRUARY Determination of the Planning Application (TBC)
If you have any further questions then please feel free to get in contact with the consultation engagement team:
Thank you for your interest. This survey is now closed and is no longer accepting responses. All feedback received during the consultation period will be reviewed and used to help inform the final proposals before they are submitted for planning consideration.