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Hurst golfers' protest at council decision to shut clubhouse

By Hugh Fort
October 31, 2008

Golfers rallied outside Wokingham’s civic offices over the closure of their clubhouse, but council bosses have refused to budge, saying the taxpayer should not foot the bill.

Around 40 members of Hurst Golf Club marched on Wokingham Borough Council’s headquarters in Shute End last night armed with banners and posters to protest against the decision to stop paying for the clubhouse.

The council has decided it is not fair on the taxpayer for it to continue to fork out £173,000 a year to keep the golf course running.

It has offered the golf club, which is based at Dinton Pastures country park, Hurst, a chance to lease the building itself or the first floor area above the on-site Dragonfly Café.

Before the meeting of the council’s executive committee, Mic McCrory, club secretary, said: “The purpose of tonight is that we have got the opportunity to ask questions of our councillors about the events at the golf club and the plans to close our golf house.

“We have been speaking to them for two years about a potential move and we haven’t raised any firm objections but require the facilities we need to be in place at the new site and that hasn’t happened.

“We want to stay and not move from the site and the new site we are moving to is not ready and not adequate.

“For some of the older players it is our only form of exercise and our only social activity.”

It was a busy night for Councillor Simon Weeks, executive member for environment, leisure and PR, who faced 11 questions from the club members.

The questions included a variety of themes including disabled access to the café, changing facilities, health and safety and what would happen to the bar.

Cllr Weeks answered the questions individually but the message was clear – if the club wants those facilities, it will have to pay for them itself.

Council leader Cllr David Lee added: “We provide a public golf course but what we cannot do is provide that at the expense of our residents.

“I would like to reiterate no-one is trying to close down Hurst Golf Club.”

The golfers also handed in a petition with 605 signatures against the closure at a meeting of the council directly after the meeting.

The clubhouse is due to close on Monday.

- Read more in next week's Wokingham Times.

- Do you think it is fair to close the clubhouse? Click the link below to have your say.

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Come along Councillor Weeks, stop spinning! Council tax payers did NOT fund the £49K it cost to run the Hurst clubhouse and it is very wrong of you to say that they did. The clubhouse, along with all other facilities at Hurst, was totally funded by the greenfees collected at Hurst as demonstrated by the profit made by the course (which includes the clubhouse)Can you deny that there was an overall profit made by the golf course? Of course parts of the business did not contribute to that profit, the course maintainence, the shoe cleaner, the provision of a Golf Cart for disabled users and the clubhouse. All of these things are part and parcel of a golf course and provided they can be funded from income, as they were at Hurst, there is NO cost to the tax payer. Come clean Councillor, please retract your misleading statement.

micmac168, Woodley
07/11/2008 at 17:31

The Clubhouse hasn't cost £173,000 of anyone’s money! Stories and figures change depending on what result this council want. £173k is the alleged cost of running the actual course (which they have said is making £26kpa) and this will not change by the closure of the club house, however, the costs of running the new starters hut (replacement clubhouse) will cost the ratepayer! Good job our Council can accurately account and manage their ratepayer’s money?