Plans for more than 30 homes on the Newbury and Crookham golf course have been submitted – to ‘protect the long term viability of the club’.

The application has been made alongside a proposal to develop the existing clubhouse, and the residential development is being sought to provide the cash for it.

The club wants to spend nearly £6m on the clubhouse and course improvements, and say the cost of building the homes nears £12m.

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Developers stand to make a £3.25m profit, and the application says the development is ‘the only feasible opportunity to secure its long term future’.

The proposed site will have a mixture of three, four and five bedroom homes, but the proposal says it is not possible to provide affordable homes because the redevelopment of the clubhouse and course would not be viable.

The proposed build is on the existing course – although developers say not on a part which is used to play on,  namely the green for hole 14, the fairway for hole 15 and the tee for hole 16.

A new access road would be created off Bury’s Bank Road, with the public access footpath being re-routed.

The clubhouse application would see the redevelopment of the clubhouse and ancillary buildings to provide a reconfigured car park and two more houses.

The golf club has been on the site since 1923, but it says the Victorian facilities are old and deteriorating and says that despite trying to open the club to a wider, more diverse membership, there is insufficient funding to make the necessary changes to the clubhouse.