GREAT Paxton looks set to get an 87-hectare 18-hole golf course when Huntingdonshire District Councillors consider a planning application next Monday.

GREAT Paxton looks set to get an 87-hectare 18-hole golf course when Huntingdonshire District Councillors consider a planning application next Monday.

A Royston-based company called the Cambridgeshire Golf Club and Academy Limited has applied to change the use of agricultural land for the course and to build a club-house, maintenance building and 100-space car park.

In spite of objections from both Great Paxton and Toseland Parish Councils, HDC planners are recommending approval. The plan is supported by Sport England, which says it will help meet the recreational needs of Cambridgeshire’s expanding population.

Construction would take two years and would involve importing 120,000 tonnes of fill material, with an average of 12 days 20-tonne lorry movements onto and off the site through a new access off Toseland Road.

Of the 11 representations received by HDC from members of the public, only one was in favour of the application.

The other concerns raised – harm to the landscape, unsatisfactory sewage disposal, loss of good agricultural land, light pollution, danger from errant golf balls, no need for it, and the effect on local water-courses were dismissed by planners as not amounting to a significant reason to refuse an otherwise acceptable scheme.

However, a number of conditions proposed by the planners include a ban on floodlighting and the removal of imported material if the land is not used as a golf course.