Planning decision set to kickstart investment plans at Burgham Park Golf Club

Advance funding will pave the way for improvements to the course and clubhouse at Burgham Park, near Felton.

It follows Cussins’ successful planning appeal which overturns Northumberland County Council's initial rejection of its plans for 48 homes around the course.

The decision is a huge relief to Burgham Park Leisure Ltd who took the club on after it fell into administration in 2016.

“It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster ride,” admitted managing director David Armstrong.

"When the club went into administration a lot of members wandered off to other clubs and we haven’t had the funds to invest in the course and clubhouse as we would have liked. New homes on the site will enable us to reinvest in the club’s facilities and bring it back up to where it once was.”

The highly-regarded course was designed by former European Ryder Cup captain Mark James and opened in 1994.

“We’ve got about 300 members now but hopefully we’ll now be able to start building that up again and attracting visiting parties and societies,” said Mr Armstrong. “We also want to create a village pub feel to the clubhouse.”

Plans include a new greenkeepers’ shed, undercover driving range bays, improvements to the ladies’ changing room and a car park upgrade.

On the course, bunkers require digging out a new drainage installed.

"That all takes time and money but the members are all very excited about the future,” said Mr Armstrong.

Cussins’ application was initial rejected at a Castle Morpeth Local Area Council meeting in February last year, against the advice of planning officers. A planning inspector acknowledged this plan was “clearly inappropriate development in the green belt,” something the housebuilder has accepted and claimed special circumstances could negate.

Concerns about the likely over-reliance on cars to access Longhorsely, the nearest village, due to the lack of safe footpaths were also sustained by the inspector.

But the councillors’ decision was overturned regardless, as there was deemed to be a “real possibility” that previously-approved plans to build 50 holiday homes and 14 luxury homes would go ahead, causing even greater damage to the green belt.

Eight holiday homes have already been built as part of the original plan and according to the appeal decision, there is “no planning or legal impediments to prevent the remainder” from being finished as a ‘fallback’ to the failure of the more recent plans.

The new application involves using 5% less green belt land than previously approved proposals for the site, with buildings further from the site boundaries and more green space incorporated into the design.

Councillors had argued that the decreased number of units did not “outweigh the harm caused by the inappropriate development.”

The council also claimed fallback plans for holiday lets actually presented “greater economic benefits to the tourist economy,” and there was greater demand for holiday units than permanent housing. But the inspectorate disagreed with the council’s arguments, and sided with Cussins’ view that plans would generate fewer vehicles, create more construction jobs and lead to more local area investment compared to the fallback. A range of three to five bedroom family homes are planned.