Stockport golf club will not be turned into housing

A golf club in Stockport that was earmarked to be closed so 278 homes could be built on it has been saved following a campaign by local residents.

Stockport council’s planning committee voted to reject the application from Hollins Strategic Land by seven votes to five to build on Gatley Golf Club, despite the plan being recommended for approval by planning officers.

The design submitted to the council included creating an urban park, tennis courts and allotments as part of the development alongside new homes. Before the vote, residents in the area campaigned to stop the building work going ahead, with a petition to ‘save’ the club being signed by more than 1,000 people.

The applicant questioned whether the golf club would be financially viable in the future after full membership of the club was closed in 2018, but campaigners say there are more than a thousand people who would be interested in joining Gatley Golf Club if they were allowed.

Sharon Lindsay, an organiser of the Gatley Golf Course Action Group, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that she was “delighted” with the decision.

She said: “It was entirely the correct decision, to allow it to go ahead would have set a precedent that every sports facility in Stockport could fall foul of the same attempt to run it down and sacrifice the strategic open space on it.

Gatley Golf Course. Image from Facebook

“1,200 people have said they would be interested in joining the golf club as social or full members, to make sure that this really beautiful open space which is loved and enjoyed by everyone locally remains.

“That we can now come together and protect this for the future, and everyone can come together to enjoy it as the community facility which it is.”

Lib Dem councillor Ian Powney said the club members’ decision to sell the land for development was driven by profit: “It’s not for sporting benefit but because it’s going to line their pockets, and they stopped other people joining because that would dilute how much money they would get out of it.”

Councillor Anna Charles-Jones, leader of the Independent Ratepayers in the Heald Green ward, voted against the application and said: “The points that I keep coming back to are the loss of the green lung, and that phrase once it’s gone it’s gone forever.”

Labour and Co-operative Party councillor Rachel Wise said: “As a councillor I speak to people who are struggling to find somewhere to live. I have to give very significant weight to the suggestion that we build 140 affordable homes in part of the borough where average sales values are £366,000, that’s an extraordinary amount of money for somebody who has a young family, for someone who hasn’t had secure housing and secure work.”