Percy Wood Golf Club and Country Retreat in Northumberland is to be cut from 18 holes to 12, after its owner won a planning appeal to expand its holiday park.
Harrison Leisure appealed after Northumberland County Council refused its plans in April. A planning inspector, Chris Baxter, has now allowed the appeal. The scheme at Swarland will bring up to 180 new static caravans and lodges, plus a leisure hub with a swimming pool, gym and café. The existing course will be reconfigured to make room.
Council planners had recommended approval despite strong local opposition, with 197 objections citing highways, anti-social behaviour, noise, odour, light pollution and the partial loss of the golf course.
Consultants for the applicant said it would create up to 75 jobs. They argued that more managed hire caravans were needed to meet growing ‘staycation’ demand, and that golf revenue has been falling, with the course running at a recorded loss for some years.
Part of a wider trend
Percy Wood is not the first course to shrink to 12 holes. For example, in 2024, Farrington Park Golf Club in Somerset announced plans to reduce its course from 18 holes to 12 to make room for padel and pickleball courts, a children’s play park, an outdoor gym and a maintenance hub, with areas returned to nature. The club was reported to have lost members after the announcement.
Teign Valley Golf Club in Devon, owned by the same group as Farrington Park, then said it was at an early stage with proposals to replace its 18 holes with a 12-hole circuit, add padel and pickleball courts and rewild some of the land. A spokesman said the club was “not sustainable – financially or environmentally – in its present form”.
Three Locks Golf Club in Buckinghamshire applied in 2021 for permission to site 119 holiday caravans on land that held six of its 18 holes, leaving 12. In Gloucestershire, members of Naunton Downs Golf Club took legal action after the course was cut from 18 holes to nine in 2023.
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