Ambitious plans to bring golf’s Ryder Cup to Bolton have swung off course after 10,000 residents, MPs and conservationists called on the government to block the proposals.
A property firm, the Peel Group, has been given planning permission to build a championship golf course, luxury hotel and 1,000 executive homes on Grade II-listed green belt land with the aim of hosting the tournament in 2026.
The £240m project would be built on Bolton’s historic Hulton Park estate, which was formerly owned by the aristocratic family who inspired the TV series Downton Abbey.
John Whittaker, the group’s chairman, said the work would restore “a crumbling treasure” and bring tens of millions of pounds to Bolton, but admitted it all hinged on being awarded the 2026 Ryder Cup. If the bid fails, the whole development would be off. A decision on the event’s host is expected late next year.
The bid has not been met with universal approval in Bolton, a town more famous for its cotton than its clubhouses. The council leader, Linda Thomas, called the proposals “insidious” before the town hall’s planning committee gave the scheme the green light last month.
The town’s Conservative MP Chris Green and Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi have united in their disapproval, while the Bolton-born actor Maxine Peake has described the plans as “absolute madness fuelled by nothing more than utter greed”.
Conservationists have raised concerns about potential harm to local wildlife and plans to chop down swaths of ancient woodland to make way for the 7,400-yard, 18-hole golf course.
This week 10,000 residents of the town sent postcards to the communities secretary, Sajid Javid, urging him to call in and veto the plans.
In a letter addressed to Javid, the Hulton Estate Area Residents Together (Heart) said the scheme constituted a “serious and substantial encroachment into the green belt which would cause major harm” and was in “severe conflict” with the government’s national planning policies.
There is anger too over Peel’s use of a loophole in planning laws so that none of the 1,036 proposed homes would be “affordable housing”. The property firm, one of the biggest and most powerful developers in the north of England, said it would consider providing affordable housing in future if the project made a profit. It is currently expected to make a £25m loss, the company said.
At Deardens farm, which would be demolished if the plans go ahead, the impact is more personal. Michael Partington, the tenant farmer whose family have lived and worked there for 63 years, said the farm was “our whole life” and the uncertainty over its future had affected business.
The award-winning farm – the only one in Bolton to bottle and sell its own milk – was acquired by Peel when it bought the 324-hectare (800-acre) Hulton Park estate for £6.6m in September 2010, ending centuries of Hulton family ownership.
“I don’t blame Peel, I blame the Labour council,” Partington said while serving customers in his farm shop this week. “Peel are only businesspeople at the end of the day. The Labour council had it in their power to stop it all but they didn’t – they’re supposed to be protecting green spaces.”
Peel’s planning director, Richard Knight, said bringing the Ryder Cup to Bolton was “both a realistic and achievable aim” but a decision by Javid to call in the scheme would be a potentially fatal blow and mean it would be likely to miss next year’s selection deadline.
Hosting the Ryder Cup would be a “once-in-a-generation growth opportunity” for the region, Peel said in its planning application, predicting that visitors would spend £56m in local shops and hotels. More than 1,000 jobs would be created over the next 20 years, it said.
On the loss of wildlife and woodland, Knight said the plans would result in a “net biodiversity gain” for Hulton Park, which he said had been in decline for a century until it was acquired by Peel in 2010.
Approving the plans, planning officers acknowledged the “substantial levels of objection” and that the scheme was contrary to green belt policies, but said the “very special circumstances” of hosting the Ryder Cup outweighed the harm.
Officials said the “significant national, regional and local benefits” of the tournament were a “fundamental component of the benefits of the proposal, without which it would not be appropriate to grant planning permission”.
While the Ryder Cup would be a glitzy jewel in the crown for Peel Group, the success of the bid is far from assured. One Ryder Cup source said Bolton would struggle against elite European competition and it would be years before the biennial tournament returned to the UK, which has hosted the last three European legs (the next two will be in Paris and Rome).
At Deardens farm, Partington’s 22-year-old daughter, Fiona, was busy running the family’s fledgling ice-cream business, which has quickly gained a positive reputation since its launch two summers ago. “Best ice-cream in the north,” one customer said when the Guardian visited.
This time next year the shop, land and farmhouse where the Partingtons have lived for decades could be dust. “It’s making it a real struggle to work in this environment. It’s tough to keep morale high,” said Fiona. “I really worry about us as a family.”