Fears that £30m golf scheme has hit rough

Ken Houston, The Scotsman, 13 June 2000

A property development company which has proposed a £30 million mixed scheme, incorporating leisure and housing, in an unemployment blackspot, fears the plan is about to be given the thumbs down by the local authority planning committee.

Watson Medlock Developments of Edinburgh. wants to create an 18-hole championship golf course on a site in the middle of the Whitburn/Armadale/Bathgate triangle close to the M8, to be designed by a high-profile golf course architect. Features of the development would also include a clubhouse, luxury hotel and golf academy.

But the sticking point appears to be the provision of 36 luxury houses: Watson Medlock claims that the residential element is required to make the whole scheme viable; West Lothian Council, while enthusiastic about the proposed leisure facilities, says the housing would go against the local plan, which is to retain the green belt currently separating the three communities.

Watson Medlock, which is owned by the Edinburgh-based agency veteran, Mike Watson, and his younger co-director, Ann Medlock, bought the site from lbstock in March last year. The company is believed to have paid £750,000 with backing from the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Golf supremo Peter Allis has given his backing to the proposals, saying that it has “great potential” and that his company “would be very pleased to be associated with the scheme” if it went ahead.

Ms Medlock said: “We are trying to create something different here. Apart from Loch Lomond, Gleneagles and a few others, top Scottish golf courses are very much links-orientated. We want to create a quality inland course which also provides some of the challenge of the links. But essentially we view it as providing ‘golf for all’; given its proximity to the M8 the course will be accessible to many, many people from the central belt, while Edinburgh airport is only 20 minutes’ drive away and we are hoping it will appeal to golfing tourists. Local people would be able to use the golf academy we plan to set up.”

Ms Medlock insists, however, that the scheme requires the 36-unit residential plan which would comprise houses selling at prices ranging from £350,000 to £500,000. “These houses will be laid out in manner sympathetic to the local environment. We will be planting trees, will allow public access and we will conserve the small nature reserve there.”

David Jarman, director of planning at West Lothian Council, declined to say if he had made up his mind about the scheme when we spoke last week. While describing it as a very attractive scheme”, he pointed out that the current local plan protected the area of green belt between the towns - and that the housing element went against this. However, he did add: “This does not mean that the plan is set in concrete.”

Ms Medlock was adamant that her motive for the residential part of the plan was not to simply add value to the site and then move on. She said: “This is a five- to ten-year job which I want to see through.” She claimed that West Lothian was crying out for investment of this sort. She added:

“When you take the golf course, clubhouse, five-star hotel and housing, we are talking about something with an end value of £30 million. Over the last 150 years a lot has been taken out of West Lothian and not much put back in. People who made their money out of West Lothian tended to live elsewhere - you don’t see a lot of big mansions like you do in other industrial areas. Here is a scheme that will put something back in to the community.”