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We have objected to a planning application, from Old Thorns Golf and Country Club, to create a new golf-course on a heathland common near Liphook in the South Downs National Park.
We consider the golf course will be highly damaging to the superb landscape of the area and people’s enjoyment of it.
Common land is a unique survival from medieval times, and heathland commons are especially important for their wildlife habitats which are rapidly diminishing. The golf course will interfere with the rights of graziers whose stock do good work in maintaining the heathland habitat.
The development will also interfere with the rights of the public to walk over the whole common.
We have said that the applicant needs to be aware that even if he obtains planning permission, he must still have consent from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, under section 38 of the Commons Act 2006, for works on common land. Such an application will be strenuously opposed.
This development appears to be for purely private gain at huge cost to the public interest in this unique landscape. We have urged the South Downs National Park Authority to oppose it.