Eddy sells his country club
8:40am Friday 25th July 2008 in Search By Leigh Robinson
Eddy Shah
EDDY and Jennifer Shah have sold the Wiltshire Golf and Country Club in Wootton Bassett in a multi-million pound deal.
The new owner is Rob Smith, a 43-year-old businessman from Essex who was with the Paton Group of Hotels.
Despite the sale, the former media magnate has vowed to press on with plans for eco-holiday homes nearby.
“We’d gone about as far as we could and it was time to hand over to a younger person to take it to the next stage,” said Mr Shah.
“Rob is that person and he will be taking over at the end of August.”
There will be no redundancies and if Mr Smith develops the centre there might even more jobs in the future.
The Shahs have been at the club for the last seven years and during that time have spent around £7m improving the facility.
When they arrived the club had an 18-hole golf course with a small clubhouse.
And since then a 60-room hotel has been built complete with a leisure centre, swimming pool and spa plus a restaurant.
The golf course has been further developed with another nine holes added over the last couple of years.
More than 100 people work at the complex.
They will not be selling their holiday homes, which are adjacent.
“We built 44 and have sold half of them,” said Eddy.
“Some of these we will keep because more and more people will be taking their holidays in the UK in the years to come. I am still going ahead with my appeal to build 30 more homes on the land.
“Our business will now be holiday homes and this will bring even more jobs to the area.
“These homes will still be able to use the facilities at the Wiltshire Golf and Country Club.
“That has been written into the deal with Rob Smith.”
The original Wiltshire Golf Course was an 18-hole design on 140 acres of rolling countryside.
It was designed by Peter Alliss and opened in 1991.
Jennifer and Eddy took over in 2001.
Two years later after an expenditure of £1m, which included the purchase of an additional 100 acres and nine new holes.
The Wiltshire also joined the Best Western Hotels group of independently-owned hotels this year.
