AMBITIOUS plans to create a state-of-the-art golf course in Widnes which will be the envy of clubs across the North West have been kick-started.
Widnes Golf Club, established in the town for more than 100 years, has finally set its sights on land at Pex Hill for a new 18 hole course costing millions of pounds.
Following consultations with club members - who agree the existing site lacks room for expansion and no longer meets the specification of a modern facility - the club has teamed up with GL White Property in drawing up an outline planning application.
To cover the cost of the course, which early estimates put at £4mil -lion, the club will have to sell its existing course on Highfield Road.
Plans are in the pipeline to create a mixed use residential development on the existing course.
As the site borders Halton and Knowlsey, both authorities will have to be consulted.
John Mawer, club treasurer, told the Weekly News: 'We have no application for the existing course in yet but it would be a mixed development, with housing being a large part of it.
'Even if we get approval for this site, we still need approval for the other, and we fully understand this.'
A club spokesman said: 'If the club is to provide the standard of facilities that are now commonplace in golf clubs across the country it must be alive to the need for change.
'They would benefit not only the existing members of the club but also the generation of young golfersto-be on whom the club's future depends and, by safeguarding a significant area of Green Belt land, the wider community as well.'
