The Springs Golf Club near Wallingford in Oxfordshire (pictured above) has made a planning application to South Oxfordshire District Council to evolve the club into a luxury golf resort featuring a spa and lodge-style accommodation.
The Springs is one of 21 sites operated by Darwin Escapes, a leading luxury lodge resort group, and is one of three golf courses in the portfolio, alongside Kilnwick Percy Resort (‘The KP club’) in Yorkshire and Dundonald Links in Ayrshire.
The application is for 43 luxury lodges, which will offer a mixture of self-catering and hotel room-style accommodation, along with a brand new reception and spa building. The plans also include expanding the existing club house, which will see the addition of two state-of-the-art golf simulators as well as an improved and expanded restaurant and bar area and new outdoor terrace.
Darwin has already made significant investments to The Springs course itself. There has been a transformation in the quality of the golf course through the strategic placing and improved design of bunkers, improvements to the length of the course to attract golfers of all categories, redesigned holes and the implementation of new holes. In addition, the lakes on the course have been made a more integral part of the course and there has been a tree moving and re-planting strategy.
Darwin believes that that adding lodges and the spa facility to the site will provide a valuable economic boost to the local area in terms of job creation and spend in the local community by resort guests. The plans received overwhelmingly positive feedback from local residents and The Springs Golf Club members at a recent open day, with golf club members welcoming the positive changes that have so far been made by Darwin since it acquired the course in June 2017.