Golf-hotel construction to begin in spring

11:08am Tuesday 25th December 2007

Comments (0)   Have your say »

WORK is to start on the £100 million Gleneagles of the West golf-hotel at Savernake in the spring.

Ronnie Nathan, chief executive of Golf Club Investment Holdings, told the Gazette that work should start in about three months time.

He said the scheme had been delayed throughout 2007 because of problems securing a vital water supply.

The developers knew from the start that they would have to bring in piped water from miles away because of a water shortage locally.

They have been involved with negotiations with Thames water for more than two years.

Mr Nathan said: "We had it sorted out and we had signed a contract with them last January and hoped they would get started.

"But then Thames Water sold its utilities side and we finally managed to get a meeting with them only two weeks ago."

Mr Nathan said it had been agreed that a pipeline would be laid all the way from a supply at Ramsbury to Tottenham House at Savernake.

Mr Nathan said: "It will be costing us several million pounds just to get the water supply laid on."

Golf Club Investment Holdings' rescue plan for the Grade I listed mansion, formerly the family seat of the Ailesbury family, received general acclamation.

The house was used for many years following World War II as a preparatory school, Hawtreys.

The boys' school, which was attended by Lord Cardigan, who runs the estate, closed in 1994.

The Amber Foundation, a registered charity, which provides rehabilitation for young people with drugs and other problems later used the house for some years.

The house, which has parts dating from 1720, but which was re-modelled and enlarged in the 1820's, is on a national register of Grade I buildings at risk.

In May 2005 Kennet District Council planners gave the go-ahead for the house and grounds to be turned into a luxury hotel and golf resort.

Initially, the scheme was described as a £50 million project but Mr Nathan said the expected cost was now in the region of double that amount.

He said his design team had agreed a better arrangement of the hotel rooms to be built on the former kitchen gardens.

It has been emphasized throughout the scheme that the hotel project will not alter the exterior view of Tottenham House, viewed from the nearby road.

The new units will be concealed behind one of the existing flank walls of the mansion.

The golf course will be created on land behind the house and the park in front of the mansion is to be preserved.

Mr Nathan said: "Hopefully work will start on the pipeline in February."

"Once we know that work has started on the water supply, we hope to start work on the hotel in about March."

He said: it was anticipated the golf-hotel would be completed by the early summer of 2010.