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Michael Shattock
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Frankton’s popular golf course has been given a temporary reprieve as the battle over its future continues.
The nine-hole course – used by tens of thousands of people each year – is under threat of closure when its lease expires at the end of June 2012.
Operated by Queenstown Golf Club, the course sits on land owned by Queenstown Lakes District Council and Queenstown Airport Corporation. The airport has signalled that it will need its slice when it comes to expand its facilities in the next few years.
At a Queenstown Lakes District Council meeting today (Tuesday), councillors were supposed to approve a recommendation that would effectively spell the end for the course.
It was proposed that council-owned entity Lakes Leisure would begin planning a redevelopment of the course to expand the Events Centre – and the golf club would only be allowed to occupy the reserve on a month-by-month basis till such time.
And if funding wouldn’t allow the long-term expansion of the Events Centre before 2015, then Lakes Leisure could take over the running of the course on behalf of the council.
But the proposals didn’t wash with most councillors today – many saying it’s too soon to make such a decision.
Cllr Cath Gilmour successfully mooted that a working party be formed – comprising representatives from QLDC, Lakes Leisure, Queenstown Golf Club and Cllr Russell Mawhinney – to come up with a preferred structure to operate the course for golf till the land is needed for sport and recreation.
QLDC will also help the club look for alternative sites.
Golf club boss Michael Shattock says he’s pleased with the decision and it gives operators more time to find a new site that’s appropriate.
“It appears the general consensus of council is that golf should be continued on the site in the meantime. Now there’s just the debate over who will run it,” he says.
Shattock doesn’t like the idea of Lakes Leisure running the course.
“Golf certainly takes a lot of skills. We employ people who’ve been in the golf business for 20-odd years. It’s a complex operation to run.”
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