A scheme to build 35 holiday lodges on a golf course near Bury St Edmunds has been thrown out by planners.
The proposal for All Saints Hotel & Golf Course at Fornham St Genevieve was a re-submission of a scheme originally rejected by West Suffolk Council in February but was this time recommended for approval.
The application was for change of use of part of the golf course for the lodges, a new access off the A1101, plus an access road and parking spaces and associated infrastructure including buggy park.
To maintain the yardage of the golf course a total of five holes would have to be altered. The application also proposed a private foot/buggy path from the
development site to the All Saints Hotel across the golf course and river Lark, linking into the existing public rights of way
All Saints said the lodges, which would be timber-clad and self-catering, would supplement the hotel facilities, encourage people to stay and play the course and provide jobs and boost visitors to Bury St Edmunds and the surrounding area.
But the proposals for the 2.8 hectare area, between the Mildenhall Road industrial estates and Pigeon Lane/Fornham All Saints, has sparked opposition from nearby residents and councillors who say it would eat into the valuable green buffer between Bury St Edmunds and Fornham All Saints, generate excess traffic and adversely affect the environment.
Members of the council’s development control committee meeting on Wednesday July 8 heard the new application had seen the numbers of lodges applied for drop from 37 to 35.
But it would involve the loss of 14 trees, and while 124 new ones would be planted as part of landscaping it would take up to 15 years for them to reach maturity.
Independent councillor Jason Crooks said he supported the scheme: “This application is an improvement on last time. There is more soft landscaping and trees and the site is up against an industrial estate. We must support tourism within Bury and the local economy.”
But Peter Stevens for the Conservatives said the site was a valued landscape which needed to be preserved and the lodges would have been better being dispersed around the golf course.
“It’s an open flood-plain, albeit that it’s criss-crossed by a golf course. It’s fragile, and the permanency of these lodges - would I am sure, regress to permanent structures in many years time,” he said.
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