GolDev Woking Ltd

GolDev Woking Ltd received £250 million in lending from Woking Borough Council, making it one of the single largest recipients of council funds. The company had virtually no independent assets and was entirely dependent on council borrowing.

The lending to GolDev represents one of the most egregious examples of the council's failure to manage commercial risk. The company was unable to service or repay the debt, resulting in what is expected to be a near-total loss for the council.

Lending to GolDev began in 2016 and escalated rapidly, reaching £250 million by 2017. The pace and scale of lending to a company with no independent asset base raises fundamental questions about the governance and oversight of the council's lending decisions.

The Grant Thornton Public Interest Report highlighted GolDev as an example of the inadequate governance that characterised the council's commercial activities. The report questioned how such significant sums could be lent to an entity with so little capacity to repay.

The loss from GolDev lending is a major component of the overall deficit that led to the Section 114 notice. Recovery of any significant portion of the lending is considered unlikely.