Meole Brace Golf Club: Shropshire Council has no plans to sell site, says leader

Speaking at a meeting of the authority's cabinet, Conservative council leader Malcolm Pate said that there are "no plans full stop" to sell the club.

He was responding to a question from Councillor Alan Mosley, leader of the council's Labour group, who said the public want clarity over the future of the site. Councillor Mosley said comments from the council's chief executive Clive Wright had left uncertainty over whether the site would be considered for sale.

However, Mr Wright insisted that his comments had been made as a response to a specific question on what the course could be used for if it was sold.

Councillor Pate said: "Neither I or the chief said we are going to sell the golf course. It is one of the assets we have but there are no plans to sell off the golf course."

The Shropshire Council-owned golf club, with a 12-hole parkland course, was the subject of a reported bid of more than £15 million back in 2010.

Speaking several weeks ago Mr Wright had stressed that the site would always have to remain used for public amenity.

He said: "There are no specific plans around the golf course and all plans would be subject to planning approval.

"There would have to be a public amenity around there. It may not always be a golf course – that said there are no plans to anything with it – but it will always be for public amenity."

Concerns had initially been sparked over the future of the site when Shropshire Council confirmed that it was conducting a review of all assets in an attempt to raise funds.

Councillor Pate had said: "We are looking at a lot of options to raise capital to support the revenue budget and there are several items that we are looking at that we may or may not consider selling."

The money raised through the sale of land is intended to help pay for about £38 million of spending intended to reduce the council's ongoing revenue costs. The schemes include £12.5 million earmarked to pay for future redundancies, £20.2 million to be spent on the IT digital transformation scheme, and £5.1 million on replacing the children and adult social care IT system.