We're still on course for 18 holes, say Westbury golf club owners (From Wiltshire Times)

We're still on course for 18 holes, say Westbury golf club owners

12:10pm Friday 1st March 2013 in News By Andy Baber

The owners of White Horse Country Park in Westbury believe they have been left in limbo by Wiltshire Council over planning permission to build a nine-hole extension around the existing White Horse golf course.

Derek Hulin, who bought the park with Shaun May for £1.5million in July 2009, says Wiltshire Council’s planning department failed to respond to their inquiries until they were told their application would be regarded as a waste operation.

The application, which was originally submitted in June 2012, was recently withdrawn after planning officers told the owners that they needed to re-apply with additional waste information.

While the new application has now been submitted, Mr Hulin is concerned the long delay has left prospective members uncertain about whether the nine-hole extension will ever go ahead.

Mr Hulin said: “There are people at the club who are questioning whether this is ever going to happen and I have to keep assuring them that it will. We have people waiting to become members until it is confirmed that the golf course will be extended to an 18-hole, so everyone is in limbo at the moment.

“We withdrew the application on the advice of Wiltshire Council as they seem to keep changing the goal posts. I feel they have let us down. We would hopefully have been employing people now if the application had moved on, so it’s quite annoying.

“Maybe they think we’ll just go away, but we want this course made.”

Although the nine-hole extension has experienced problems, the new driving range is expected to open in April.

A Wiltshire Council spokesperson said: “Since the application was received last July, there has been a continuing dialogue with the applicant’s agent over the waste management operations associated with the proposed development and the information required for the application to be properly considered and determined.

"Following advice given on a number of occasions, the application has now been withdrawn and is to be re-submitted with the necessary information and description; to date no new application has been registered.”

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