De Vere Resort Ownership Ltd, the UK’s largest five-star time ownership operator, has received full planning permission to build a £50 million world-class golf and leisure resort on a 300-acre site by Loch Lomond, Scotland.
The Carrick at Cameron House on Loch Lomond will be located just over a mile north of De Vere’s Cameron House Hotel at Balloch and consist of 96 five-star time ownership properties – 76 lodges and 18 apartments, which are exclusive to the resort, a championship-standard all-season golf course, spa and extensive leisure facilities. One third of the development will be committed to a nature reserve for the protection of local wildlife.
The public-access 18-hole golf course (par 71) has been designed by internationally acclaimed Canadian course architect, Doug Carrick, and will be shaped to preserve and enhance the beauty of the existing landscape, affording unrivalled views of the loch. The playability of The Carrick on Loch Lomond will benefit from being built on a gravel substructure and its natural drainage will ensure play all year round.
The full build schedule will be completed in 2006. Construction on the golf course commenced in May 2004 and full play is expected by Summer 2006. The first phase of luxury two-, three- and four-bedroom lodges and the mansion houses will commence in August.
De Vere Resort Ownership has appointed two contractors to commence the first phases of the development: the infrastructure (water, electric, sewage and roads) will be done by EDRC and the golf course works by Abbotts. Craig Mitchell, managing director of De Vere Resort Ownership Ltd, anticipates that some 250 full and part-time jobs will be created locally upon completion of the development.
“We are delighted to see a world class tourism development come to Loch Lomond National Park. There will be nowhere else in Scotland like The Carrick at Cameron House that will offer residents such an exclusive holiday package in a stunning, tranquil rural setting yet within easy reach of Edinburgh and Glasgow,” he said. “The fact that we have been given the go-ahead to create the resort in an area that already boasts an internationally renowned golf course and has been afforded the title of Scotland’s first National Park makes us very proud to be part of this.”
Forming the core of the leisure development will be the spa with additional external recreational and restaurant facilities and water activities to entertain guests. This element of the resort is due to be operational in 2005.
Straddling the Highland Boundary Fault, the Midross Estate on which The Carrick on Loch Lomond will lie, borders the Caledonian Forest within Scotland’s first National Park, an area of outstanding natural beauty.
The Loch Lomond Resort will be the fourth time ownership development in the De Vere portfolio. The group also has Cameron House (since 1996), Slaley Hall, Northumberland (since 1998), and Belton Woods, Lincolnshire (since 1999).
De Vere Group www.DeVereGolf.co.uk
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