Slice of fortune finally comes golf club's way

A plan to help koalas on the golf course has given the Grafton District Golf Club saga a happy ending and allowed a multi-million dollar development.

FAIRWAY TO GO: Recently appointed Grafton District Golf Club chief executive officer Peter Mitchell is ready to move ahead with plans after Clarence Valley Council approved the DA to allow the sale of the former 10th and 11th holes to aged care developer Signature Care. Picture: Bill North

RARELY can sliced golf shots have caused a group of golfers so much grief.

Fifteen years after Grafton District Golf Club made the decision to decommission its 10th and 11th holes in response to complaints about out-of-bounds drives bouncing onto Bent St, the club has finally had some good news.

On Tuesday Clarence Valley Council approved a DA for an aged care facility on the golf club land, allowing the sale of the land to go ahead and provide the club an estimated $2.2 million in proceeds from the sale.

Retiring club president Trevor Townsend can hand over the reignsreins to his successor in December with the club finally in a sound financial position after a long battle to stay out of the rough.

"We had a lovely par four 10th, but we had to shut it down because sliced drives were bouncing across Bent St,” he said.

"We made it into a par three, but the problems still continued. So we had to bite the bullet and decommission the holes.”

From 2004 the club hit bunker after bunker as it proposed to turn the land into a housing blocks to raise funds to bail out its struggling bank account.

Council planners were not always accommodating and residents who had bought large blocks neighbouring the course were not all convinced the club's plans suited the area.

Mr Townsend acknowledged all these issues, but hoped the plans the developer, aged care provider Signatur Care, had put forward would deal with most of them

But he said the koala population on the course could have been the stumbling block for the development.

"Coming up with the Koala Management Plan was the thing that got us across the line,” Mr Townsend said.

"Meeting the requirement for 750 koala habitat trees to compensate for the trees lost to the development is going to be a big thing for us,” he said.

"We've had to buy land adjoining the course to for the trees and for the next three years we'll have to tend to those seedlings every day to make sure they thrive.”

Mr Townsend said club member Matt Dougherty had chipped in when he made the connection with Signature Care which came to Grafton two years ago looking for land to build an aged care centre.

Mr Dougherty said he knew the delays had frustrated the developers, but they had been totally professional in dealing with it.

"They've never had to deal with the type of issues that came up here, but they never lost the plot,” he said.

"They've got a significant investment here and have decided to bide their time while the different government agencies satisfied themselves it can go ahead.”

He expected preliminary earthworks at the site could begin in the next six months.

Originally published as Slice of fortune finally comes golf club's way