Teeing off Work on nine-hole course and practice range starts

robin.jenkins@reachplc.com

THE landscape of a large area at the foot of Leckhampton Hill in Cheltenham is undergoing a big change.

Diggers are excavating there to create a new golf course next to the Lilley Brook Golf Club on the south-eastern edge of the town.

Walkers making their way up the hill from Sandy Lane may have seen the work being carried out.

Many of them will have witnessed the changing face of the site from the top of the hill, where it is also clearly visible.

So what is happening?

We asked the Cirencester Roadbased golf club, which boasts of “outstanding golf in an area of outstanding natural beauty”, what it was working on.

It revealed the work is for a new ninehole golf course and practice range, the plans for which attracted objections from some residents in November 2017.

There were fears that the development could exacerbate flooding problems in Sandy Lane and lead to issues related to lorries going to and from the site.

Lilley Brook Golf Club chairman Tim Clink was reluctant to talk about those issues as he felt they had been addressed in the past but he was upbeat about the creation of the new facilities, saying they would benefit people and the environment.

He said: “We have an extant planning consent, a full environmental licence, the work has commenced and is around 25 per cent complete.

“Any continued objections are now irrelevant.

“All that is going into the field is clean soil taken in the main from building sites around the area.

“We are hopeful that the work will be finished in the next 12 months when the field will be reseeded and returned to grass.

“We are producing a nine-hole academy golf course and practice range, which gives a fantastic opportunity for young people and newcomers to golf to learn the game, which will be good for their physical and mental health and therefore good for the NHS in the long term.

“A further benefit of the scheme is that the flood alleviation system that has been installed at the bottom of the field has already been proven to reduce the flow of water from the field during periods of excessive rainfall.

“We will also be planting over 100 trees in and around the field, having had to remove just one to complete this work, which is also a tonic for the environment.”

But doubts remain in some people’s minds about whether the development will be good for the area.

John Hughes, of the Charlton Kings Flood Action Group, said possible flooding and traffic issues remained a concern.

He said: “Sandy Lane in the last few years has been turned into a river on a couple of occasions.”

He added: “We expressed our concerns at the time it went through planning and nothing has happened to make us think otherwise.”