Haven for many different species

Having been put firmly in my place by Mr Paul Clarke, cabinet member for finance and assets, local economy and parking, Horsham District Council – phew – in last week’s letters, I hope he won’t mind if I leave the naughty step for a short while to make a couple of observations.

As he is a non-golfer, I do understand that he may not derive benefit from other people playing the sport, but I would point out that in common with most of the community who also pay council tax, many residents don’t use the leisure centres, swimming pools etc that he draws comparisons with but are still quite happy to contribute, fully accepting that they don’t have a veto over services they may not use.

He mentions a report commissioned 18 months ago, (was this made available to Horsham residents?), before the seismic change to the current and future working patterns of the local population.

Having had experience of current, rather than outdated figures of Rookwood Golf Course usage, I was very aware from trying to book a tee time during the summer and autumn, that the level of weekday usage meant that very few slots had remained free.

Given that there are over 40 slots per day, with the possibility of accommodating 160 people, I would argue that this in fact shows there is a substantial usage which can only increase as work patterns allow more people to have access.

Furthermore, many golf courses do not offer the kind of pay and play that makes Rookwood so accessible to all the community, regardless of experience, who have the opportunity to try this game and hopefully carry on playing!

Golf courses take many years of expertise and care to build and maintain. Once lost, they cannot be easily replaced.

It is widely accepted that Rookwood is an excellent course in terms of both layout for ease of use by all levels of player and also the quality of the construction of the course, tees and greens.

It is also a haven that has promoted great diversity and protection for wildlife as shown in the many studies carried out recently.

If, as councillor Clarke says, all those people I saw at Rookwood don’t exist and in fact there are only very few of us ever seen playing, would that then make us a protected species?

If so, then should we not be allowed to keep the course open as a reserve where our apparently disappearing breed could be preserved?