Members of West Middlesex Golf Club have launched a public petition in a bid to save the 135-year-old James Braid course from closure, after Ealing Council agreed a settlement that will strip the club of its long lease and hand the land back to the local authority.
The Southall club – the oldest in Middlesex, founded in 1891 as Ealing Golf Club, with golf played on the site since 1893 – has more than 400 members, hosts around 8,000 visitor rounds a year and employs 27 people.
“West Middlesex Golf Club, the oldest golf club in Middlesex, is currently facing closure as the council looks to reallocate the land for property development and other unknown projects,” said general manager Alex Finch. “We’re a community members club, open to the public.”
Under a three-way settlement approved by Ealing Council’s cabinet on July 9, the club will surrender its existing lease – which had around 75 years left to run – over roughly 130 acres, and be granted a short-term ‘excluded lease’ allowing it to remain on the site only until September 30, 2027. An excluded lease carries no automatic right of renewal.
The council will then sell a 2.27-acre plot to a company that acted as debt funder to bring the golf club out of administration in 2022, and is now seeking to recover its investment. Ealing has been in active litigation with the club over alleged lease breaches, and officers advised that continuing legal action carried significant cost, uncertainty and risk.
The club says the truncated term leaves it unable to renew memberships beyond April 2027, which would push it into insolvency within a year and put all 27 jobs at risk.
Petition passes 4,800 signatures
The Change.org petition, “Preserve West Middlesex Golf Club for the Community”, was launched on July 7 and attracted more than 2,000 signatures in its first 24 hours. It is addressed to both Ealing Council and the Greater London Authority, and is currently just under 5,000 signatures.
The petition argues the course – redesigned by five-time Open champion James Braid in 1910, and host to an annual amateur world ranking event – is an accessible, inclusive facility with no joining fees and visitor play seven days a week, as well as “a vital green lung in the urban landscape”.
“Allowing the golf course to coexist peacefully with new developments is not only plausible but beneficial,” it states, calling for “a plan that respects both progress and preservation”.
Campaigners believe the land is destined to form part of the planned West London Regional Park, for which funding is already in place. The council has said no decision has been taken on the site’s future use, and that all options will be considered between completion of the deal and the return of the land in September 2027.
Cross-party challenge fails
A formal “call-in” of the cabinet decision, backed by 23 Liberal Democrat, Conservative and Green councillors, was rejected by Ealing’s overview and scrutiny committee on July 23 by seven votes to four, with all seven Labour members voting to uphold the decision.
Conservative group leader Julian Gallant said: “The golf club sits on council land and is enjoyed not just by golfers, but by a huge section of Ealing’s outdoor-going public. Labour insists that no decision has been taken about the ultimate use of the land, but nobody genuinely believes that.”
Liberal Democrat councillor Connie Hersch said the lack of published documentation risked making the arrangement “sound to many like something of a dodgy deal”, and called for the decision to be sent back to cabinet with “all the cards on the table”.
Councillor Steve Donnelly, Ealing’s cabinet member for inclusive economy and efficiency, rejected the criticism, describing the vote as a “narrow decision regarding the recouping of the lease” and saying the council’s dispute was with GRL rather than the golfing community. He said there was no statutory obligation to consult golfers because the council was engaged in a commercial negotiation with a private limited company, and that the council first needed to “gain control” of the land.
The decision could yet face a legal challenge. Speaking at the scrutiny meeting on behalf of playing members and course users, Ealing resident David Thomas told councillors the arrangement conflicted with the club’s articles of association and was “simply not legally viable”, warning it could trigger “really quite significant long drawn out litigation”.
The threat to West Middlesex follows the closure of nearby Perivale Golf Club in 2024, which has since been converted into Pear Tree Park.
The petition can be found at change.org/preserveWMGC.
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