Club to reconfigure course due to motorway widening scheme

Pike Fold Golf Club in Greater Manchester has been granted planning permission to alter seven of its holes due to a major motorway remodelling scheme.

The Simister Island development, a project to improve the M60 junction 18 interchange, will see the motorway’s hard shoulder widened and converted into a new traffic lane.

In the club’s planning submission to Bury Council, it stated: “It has now been agreed that the safest option for all concerned would be to move the greens further from the affected boundary.”

Image from X

The approved alterations include revamping holes 1, 2, 6, 10, 15, 17 and 18, which involves filling in current bunkers, constructing new ones, relocating tees and adjusting footpaths. Minimal tree clearance is expected, following discussions with the Forestry Commission.

Bury Council has confirmed that the proposed changes are lawful and ‘are deemed not to constitute development’.

The golf club was previously forced to relocate from its Blackley location at the end of the 1990s to accommodate a section of the M60 motorway being built.