Bellway snaps up Gatley Golf Course
The volume housebuilder has acquired the 44-acre site with permission for 278 homes from the club.
Bellway has added to its pipeline of projects with the purchase of Gatley Golf Course, which was put up for sale last year.
In 2024, Hollins Strategic Land had its plans for 278 homes on the disused golf course refused by Stockport Council’s planning committee against the recommendation of officers, just weeks after the council lost an appeal over a similar scheme in Hazel Grove, which had also been recommended for approval.
In the case of Gatley Golf Course, the committee had cited concerns about the loss of open space.
The refusal prompted an appeal that was ultimately successful. The planning inspector cited Stockport’s inability to prove a five-year housing land supply as the main reason for having overturned the refusal.
The scheme proposes a mix of homes, including 50% affordable, and 25 acres of public open space.
George Stevenson, land director at Bellway Homes, said: “The former Gatley Golf Club is a high-profile addition to our future pipeline of new homes in Greater Manchester.
“Bellway Homes moved swiftly and reliably to purchase the site once selected and we are looking forward to an early start as soon as we have all necessary planning approvals. To deliver high quality new Bellway homes in an attractive parkland setting will set the standard for new housing development in Stockport.”
Paul O’Shea, director at Hollins Strategic Land, said: “Our expert, considered, evidence-led and hands on approach to planning for new housing developments in sustainable locations has once again seen us succeed in achieving a highly marketable planning permission and a valuable sale for our landowner partner, Gatley Golf Club.
“We successfully navigated a number of significant planning, technical and legal obstacles utilising our deep knowledge and experience of how best to unlock challenging development opportunities. We now look forward to Bellway Homes delivering on our vision for a landscape-led scheme which will see the local community gain over 10 hectares of new publicly accessible green open space as well as many other worthwhile benefits.”
Savills and JMW represented Hollins on the sale.
If they’re going to develop green space like this they should be forced to develop it to at least medium density. Filling green fields with poxy little toy town houses is not going to make a difference to the housing crisis. Plus low density suburbs require huge public subsidies for the roads and public services they consume. Build to a high density, that’s more tax payers to foot the bill.
By Anonymous
Bellways have already started their site set-up and enabling works.
By Anonymous
Can’t believe there will only be 2 exits, 1 on Troutbeck and 1 on Grassmere on the side of the houses, traffic around Lum Head school is already a nightmare and cut through traffic taking children to Kingsway school will become even more dangerous.
By Anonymous
Anonymous – it wasn’t open green space, it was a private golf club not accessible to the public. It will now provide 25 acres of amenity space for us locals. It’s an improvement on what was there before.
By Gatley Local
3 exits, Troutbeck, Grasmere Rd and Motcombe Rd.
Plus 7 pedestrian/cycling links to neighbouring roads.
By 3 exits
If your going to be anonymous don’t comment. Should have the courage of your convictions. I think it will be fine plenty of open space still. Only used now mainly by dog walkers
By David Maycock
We need more housing glad it got the go ahead
By Anonymous
Can’t believe how gullible some people are if you think 50 per cent will end up as ‘affordable’ homes. It will be watered down to a lower level as developers make their money from premium homes
By Mariner98
Every time there’s an article about this site the most annoying thing is the photo being rotated so it is oriented with west at the top.
By Tom Jansen
Best of luck getting your vehicles up and down Troutbeck Road. Planning officer who approved this project obviously didn’t look at a map and see local school on this road!!
By Jayne Crawley
Played there a few times, members have been waiting years for their money. You could count the rivets on planes landing at Ringway
By Anonymous
Bellway should be completing remediation works on all the shoddy apartments they built which don’t meet fire safety regulations before being allowed to build more homes. Hundreds of apartment owners in Manchester have been stuck in these unsafe homes for years, unable to sell as they are unmortgageable to new buyers until the works are complete. But Bellway are just dragging their feet and doing everything they can to delay having to fork out to put right their mess. No doubt these new homes will also be thrown up for maximum profit and minimum standard.
By Anonymous
Golf members stopped memberships and purposely ran this club down, with the full intention to sell. Why is it okay to build on a golf course (which was fully viable until the members saw £££ signs) when there are so many brown sites. Why must they build more houses when there are thousands of empty ones that could be renovated and used as social housing.
I really hope that Adlington win their fight to stop this Newtown, Heald Green is being inundated with new builds and the infrastructure for them is abysmal.
By Janet M
Most of the housing is on the side with the Troutbeck and Grasmere entry points. This is a very busy housing estate (my parents have lived there for 58 years) with lots of cars parked on the road , made even busier at school time with Lum Head school. Two hundred plus houses, with so many extra cars, it sounds like it will be an absolute nightmare. I assumed one of the entry points would be off the bigger road, Styal road, but that seems to be only for a few houses and ‘green space’. Obviously building an extra bridge and road over the railway line was too costly. So the bulk of the traffic (construction traffic and eventually house owner traffic) is coming through a busy congested housing estate. What a nightmare.
By Max