GOLF: Beauport Park to Lose Pitch and Putt
The Beauport Park Golf & Country Club is about to lose its nine-hole pitch-and-putt course, currently on land leased from the adjacent Bannatyne Spa Hotel.
The hotel’s owners now require the land for their own use and are preparing to submit a planning application for a small residential development there. A number of surveys and site investigations, including excavation works, are to be undertaken. Southern Water are also proposing to divert a main sewer through the site.
Club director Roger Hyder has told members that “other options” will be looked at for a similar facility in the future.
However, Roger’s main immediate concern is to supervise the conversion of the former clubhouse on the right hand side of the existing club entrance into 14 two-storey apartments for stay-and-play golfers.
A new entrance will be constructed from the top car park above the practice putting green, and a container toilet block substituted for the existing toilets. The main building work is aimed to start in mid- to late summer, subject to final planning approval.
The main course was shut for virtually two months from early January because of saturating rainfall – measured as nearly double the average amount over this period. The front nine holes were eventually reopened on 6 March and, after a full-scale programme of hollow-coring, top-dressing and overseeding in recent weeks, Roger believes that the greens are already back to their best condition of two years ago.
The pitch-and-putt facility, bookable at the current reception counter, will close as of next Tuesday 31 March.
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