Golf course saved from developers

Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council has surprisingly rejected a proposal to convert Plough Hill Golf Centre in Warwickshire into a housing estate.

The decision comes amid growing calls to convert golf courses into housing to meet the UK’s shortage, but also shows local opposition to the potential loss of green space.

Plough Hill LLP had hoped to demolish the golf club and build 300 new homes in its place, and the local press had predicted that the council would give it the go ahead.

The application stated ‘residential development of up to 300 houses, open space relocation of existing nursery access and associated works with demolition of existing buildings.’

However, members of Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council’s planning applications committee ignored recommendations to approve the proposal and have rejected the application.

The golf club is made up of a nine-hole course and a driving range. Dozens of local residents had written to their local council to express their opposition to the loss of the golf club.

Earlier this year housing magazine Property Week called for golf clubs to be concreted over so that homes could be built on them, and in 2014 the then business secretary, Vince Cable, said if he were in a middle income family in Surrey struggling to find a suitable home he would “ask myself is a golf course sacred or are there better uses of the land?”

But Plough Hill has survived going under the concrete, and we have to be grateful for that.

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