Tasmania’s top level golf base may need to relocate if Tasman Highway roundabout proposal goes ahead

Choosing either of the two currently available options for the duplication of the Tasman Highway would be “disastrous for the community”, says the golf coach at a course facing the loss of its major asset.

TASMANIA’S high performance golf base may be forced to relocate if a current government proposal for a new Tasman Highway roundabout at Cambridge goes ahead.

Men’s state team coach and Tasmania Golf Club professional and pro shop owner Nick White said one of the options being considered would cut through one-third of the driving range, which was imperative for top level coaching.

The Tasmania Golf Club has previously said it fears it may need to close if the option to build the roundabout on its land was chosen.

PREMIER GOLF CLUB FEARS IT MAY NEED TO CLOSE

Tasmania Golf Club professional and pro shop owner Nick White and committee member Andrew Todd on the driving range. Picture: PATRICK GEE

“I love this golf course and that’s why I’m the golf professional here,” Mr White said.

“But the main asset I have got is the driving range and if it wasn’t here I wouldn’t be able to stay as the head professional.

“You need to be able to see ball flight at a proper driving range, you cannot coach at, say, an indoor facility.”

Mr White said to remain as a premier golf course and attract international players the club needed to have 18 holes so downsizing to nine holes to free up space wasn’t an option.

“We just don’t have the land to have an 18-hole golf course if this proposal went ahead,” he said.

“It’s disastrous for the community if these are the final two options because no one will win out of this.”

The other option would see the highway and roundabout built on private property opposite the golf course, which would affect native bushland believed to contain two of Tasmania’s endemic native orchids, both classified as critically endangered.

The two options proposed to upgrade the Tasman Highway to help reduce congestion between the Hobart Airport and Midway Point causeway.

Tasmania Golf Club committee member Andrew Todd said neither was the right option.

He said it could cost millions of dollars to redesign the course and rebuild the dam, fences, superintendent’s house and maintenance shed if the proposal went ahead.

Mr Todd said he believed the consultant planners had gone back to the project officers and put another option on the table as a result of the feedback they had received so far.

“I think the roundabouts are complete overkill for three little accesses with not much traffic and underpasses could do the same thing in a much smaller footprint,” he said.

A State Government spokesman said on Monday it did not have a preferred option.

“Feedback received will be used to develop revised options and the Department [of State Growth] will then consult with stakeholders and the community again before finalising a preferred approach,” he said.

He said the purpose of the project was to duplicate the Tasman Highway in each direction between the airport roundabout and Midway Point causeway, and provide safe access to Pittwater Rd, the golf course and Barilla Bay Oysters.

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