Plan for holiday park at Shropshire golf club rejected by council

The controversial proposals for Henlle Park Golf Club in Gobowen would have seen the course reduced from 18 holes to nine, to make way for 90 cabins.

But Shropshire Council has now refused to grant permission for the scheme, almost exactly a year after earlier plans for 120 cabins on the site were also rejected.

The decision will be welcomed by the hundreds of locals who lodged objections to both applications, citing concerns over traffic, road safety and the impact on nearby historic sites.

The £10 million development had been put forward by golf club owner Ralph Tomley and the prospective operator of the leisure site, Coppergreen Developments.

Lodging the revised plans in July last year, the applicants said they had addressed all the concerns raised over the initial plans, adding that the new holiday park would create more than 50 jobs and safeguard the existing seven at the club.

It was initially claimed the ‘front nine’ holes to be retained would remain open to the public, but it was revealed last month that the course would only be open to guests staying at the site.

Despite the reduction in scale, planning officers refused the second application for the exact same reasons as they had the first.

They said the development would have a detrimental impact on the surrounding landscape and nearby historic buildings and sites, including the non-designated Henlle Hall Park, the Grade II listed Henlle Hall and the setting of nearby scheduled sections of Wat’s Dyke.

The decision report said: “There continues to be concerns about the scale of the development in an unsustainable location, the cumulative impact of this and other holiday complex sites in the locality and the impact on heritage assets.

“It is considered that the economic benefits of providing the holiday complex on part of the established golf course do not outweigh the harm that would be caused to designated and non-designated heritage assets and to the countryside as a whole due to the proliferation of self-contained holiday accommodation in the immediate area.

“The proposal scheme also now proposes to restrict the use of the golf course to only those that are staying, which would remove this facility.

“It is recognised that the site already has a leisure use by virtue of being a golf course.

“However, this is a low intensity use with very little in terms of visual and environmental impact other than the ongoing maintenance of the course, and consequently very little impact on the appearance of the landscape.

“In contrast the creation of a holiday park with 90 lodges has a much greater impact visually, despite the proposed holiday units being ‘temporary’ in their nature, which would have a detrimental impact on the intrinsic natural and historic qualities of the location.”