New lease of life for former golf club as hotel plans approved

A HOTEL, restaurant and spa is to be built on the Thoulstone Park Golf Club site after Wiltshire Council planners gave it the green light. 

The former golf course in Chapmanslade is to be given a fresh look after the outline planning application for the 54-bed four-star hotel was approved at a recent planning meeting. The site will also have a bar, restaurant, spa pool, gym, treatment rooms and function suite for up to 200 people

The plans for the flat 1.4 hectare site were submitted by planning consultant Jeremy Smalley on behalf of the site owners James and Alka Hughes-Hallett and will end a period of over a decade of the site being largely unused.

Access will be as existing, that is, onto the lane that subsequently joins the A36.

Thoulstone Park was first granted planning permission for its use as an 18-hole golf course and driving range in 1989. The two-storey club house and 20 bay floodlit golf driving range, shop/café and two flats were permitted in 1991.

An original application for a hotel was made in 2008 and renewed in 2011. In the planning statement it is noted from the developer that the most recent application is a renewal of the original proposals.

Chapmanslade Parish Council had objected the plans stating, “The application is contrary to the District Plan policy in respect of hotels not being built in open countryside. The previous application was agreed in order to sustain the 18-hole golf course in place at the time. The present application does not allow for this 18-hole golf course and therefore the previous reasons no longer apply.”

Upton Scudamore Parish Council and the Highways Agency had supported the application.