Officers say yes to up to 206 homes on the former Moore Place golf course, half of them affordable, despite 1,173 objection letters. Councillors decide on Tuesday.
Elmbridge’s planning officers are recommending approval for up to 206 homes on the former Moore Place Golf Course in Esher, a Green Belt site off Portsmouth Road. Half of the homes would be affordable.
The Planning Committee decides the outline application, 2025/3373, at 7pm on Tuesday 13 October in the Council Chamber at the Civic Centre, Esher. The meeting is webcast.
The council has received more than 1,173 letters of objection or observation, from about 753 addresses. Six letters of support came in. The officers’ report still concludes that the benefits “clearly outweigh” the harm.
What is proposed
The applicants are Charterhouse Strategic Land and Moore Place Holdings. The site covers about 12.5 hectares on the western side of the A307 Portsmouth Road, south-west of Esher town centre. The golf course closed in 2019 and the land has been empty since.
This is an outline application. Only the accesses would be fixed now; layout, design and the exact number of homes come later. The committee report sets out:
- up to 206 homes: 103 for market sale and 103 affordable
- of the affordable homes, an indicative 64 for rent (social, affordable or intermediate) and 39 for affordable ownership
- 6.86 hectares of publicly accessible green space, more than half the site
- buildings of two and three storeys, the tallest next to the Moore Place Care Home
- the removal of 96 trees, with all veteran trees kept, and a 10% biodiversity net gain
- demolition of the existing structures: a disused single-storey clubhouse, a telecoms mast and a substation
The site is under a Tree Preservation Order covering the whole of it. Public Footpath Esher 43 runs across it along a ridge.
Why officers say it is grey belt
The whole site is Green Belt. Officers conclude it now counts as grey belt under the 2026 National Planning Policy Framework. That means land which does not strongly serve the Green Belt’s purposes of stopping sprawl, keeping towns apart and protecting the setting of historic towns.
Their reasons:
- the site is largely enclosed by existing development on all sides
- earlier Green Belt reviews found it made only a limited contribution
- a planning inspector, deciding an appeal on 1-5 Hillside, the land immediately to the north, found no “discernible narrowing” of the gap between Esher and Hersham
Grey belt housing must meet three “golden rules”: 50% affordable housing, the infrastructure needed, and new green space open to the public. Officers say the scheme meets all three.
The report also says the council has only about one year’s supply of deliverable housing sites, against the five it should have. Its Housing Delivery Test result is below 75%. Officers treat both as proof of an unmet need for homes.
What objectors say
The objections run to several pages of the report. Among them:
- the site is not grey belt, because it contributes strongly to the setting and character of historic Esher
- the scheme does not provide genuinely affordable homes for local people
- other sites, brownfield and Green Belt, are better placed; the Save Moore Place Green Belt Group submitted its own alternative sites assessment
- the site is not in the council’s Land Availability Assessment
- the new access is too close to Claremont Fan Court School
The Esher and West End Conservation Area Advisory Committees both objected. Officers accept moderate harm to landscape character and views, felt most by people using footpath Esher 43 and by neighbours. They found potential for limited harm to the setting of the Grade II listed Moore Place Lodge and the Esher Conservation Area, but say a final design can avoid it.
Traffic and the two accesses
The scheme would use two accesses from Portsmouth Road:
- the existing northern access, through the care home car park, serving a small part of the site
- a new southern access, serving about 176 homes, with a right-turn lane on Portsmouth Road and a new traffic island for people crossing
The developer’s transport assessment forecasts 1,470 trips a day in and out of the site. That includes 137 in the morning peak (7.15am to 8.15am) and 163 in the evening peak (5pm to 6pm). Surrey County Council, as highway authority, has not objected.
The off-site works it asks for include a shared footway and cycleway on the western side of Portsmouth Road and a new toucan crossing on Lammas Lane. It also wants an improved southbound bus stop on Portsmouth Road, and Footpath 42 upgraded to a shared path as far as Lammas Lane.
What the developer would pay
The report lists the money attached to a permission:
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Community Infrastructure Levy, for local infrastructure | £4,264,508.93 |
| NHS contribution, for extra GP surgery space | £346,669 |
| Public rights of way improvements | £60,960 |
| Biodiversity net gain monitoring | £14,017.40 |
| Travel plan auditing | £5,000 |
The development is forecast to yield 15 early years children, 8 primary and 31 secondary school pupils. No new school places are proposed on site; the report expects the levy to cover education.
What happens on Tuesday
If councillors agree, the developer has six months to sign a legal agreement securing the affordable homes, the green space and the payments above. If it does not, officers would have delegated power to refuse.
Approval would be in outline only. A later application would still have to set out the layout, the design and the final number of homes.
Also on the agenda
The same meeting decides three more applications. The biggest is 2026/0036, 23 homes on Network Rail’s car park off Mayfield Road, about six minutes’ walk from Walton-on-Thames station.
- the car park has a published capacity of 250 spaces, of which 155 are marked out
- the applicant is Solum Regeneration (Walton) LLP
- no affordable housing is offered; the report says the scheme cannot afford it
- officers recommend approval
- councillors deferred it on 15 September because the viability papers were not public; they were published on 16 September
The other two are at 2-6 Palace View, Bridge Road, East Molesey and 37 Lovelace Road, Long Ditton.
What it means for you
If you live near Moore Place, Tuesday is the decision that counts. Later stages will settle design, but not whether housing goes there at all. The agenda and every report are on the council’s meeting page, which also links the webcast.
The case is a test of the 2026 grey belt rules in Elmbridge. Other planning news, including the new Local Plan timetable, is on our Elmbridge planning news page.
Sources
- Elmbridge Borough Council, Planning Committee, 13 October 2026: agenda, venue, time and the four applications.
- Officers’ report on 2025/3373, Former Moore Place Golf Course, Portsmouth Road, Esher: the proposal, the recommendation, the grey belt assessment, housing supply, representations, consultee responses, transport, trees and the S106 and CIL figures.
- Officers’ report on 2026/0036, Car Park West of Waterloo Court, Mayfield Road, Hersham: the 23 homes, the car park capacity, the deferral and the viability position.
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