Golf course closure: "Residents and golfers will lose a beautiful open space and leisure facility so the council can swell its coffers"

Then the GMSF plan was announced last October, which designated the land occupied by the front nine of the William Wroe Golf Course as an area to be taken out of green belt, to have 750 houses built on it.

This attracted huge opposition from the local residents and the users of the course.

I emailed the CEO of Trafford Leisure, Jo Cherrett, more than once to ask if Trafford Leisure would be looking to be given part of the £60 million or so the council would receive from the sale of the golf course land to fund the leisure centres refurbishment. She did not reply (or even acknowledge) my emails.

• Flixton residents stunned at the closure of William Wroe Golf Course

Some person (either from Trafford Council or Trafford Leisure) had made the statement that they had identified “an over-supply of golf facilities in the Flixton area”, simply because the William Wroe Course and private Flixton and Davyhulme Park golf courses were fairly close to each other.

This ignored the patent fact that the William Wroe course was used by a different type of golfer from the other two courses, that is members of the public who wanted a relatively cheap ‘pay and play’ course which was also ideal for beginners and the less strong player.

• Reader's letter: "So the end is nigh, you are to be turned over to housing? How very very sad"

Last October, William Wroe brought in private contractors to dig a new drainage ditch across the 18th fairway and to clear out the existing ditch which runs along the 18th fairway. Would this work have been done if the closure of the course was imminent?

In February, I received a phone call from the course manager at Trafford Leisure to tell me that they were going to close the William Wroe Course permanently from March 31.

This was, he said, because the course was losing money.

No account has been taken of the several thousand houses due to be built at nearby Carrington which one supposes would include a fair number of golfers who would add to the customer base of the course.

The unseemly haste with which the closure decision has been taken leads me to suppose that Trafford Council wanted this decision to be rushed through to make it easier for them to pursue their plans to take the land out of green belt and sell it off to swell the council’s coffers at the expense of the local residents and golfers who will be losing, for ever, a beautiful open space and leisure facility.

David Medford
Secretary William Wroe Veterans Golf Society