Plans to build a new luxury hotel, spa and restaurant on the site currently occupied by Gatton Manor Hotel & Country Club in Surrey have been approved by local councillors.
The £41 million project will see the current hotel – which closed in 2022 – demolished and replaced with a new building featuring 81 guest rooms, two restaurants, a spa with indoor and wild swimming pools, gym, treatment and relaxation areas.
The 18-hole golf course, which is currently operational, will also be permanently closed, thus bringing an end to almost 60 years of continuous play on the 6,629-yard, par-72 woodland layout, which was designed by Commander John Harris and first opened in 1969. The course will be rewilded into a mixed wood pasture over a wildflower meadow and a wetland habitat.
The development of the 22-hectare site, which is located near Ockley, between Horsham and Dorking, is expected to create 290 construction jobs during the two-year build phase of the project and then 145 long-term positions once up and running.
As well as the new hotel, there will be new facilities available to the public, notably the fine dining restaurant and gym, with 100 gym memberships to be made available to residents living within two miles of the site at preferential rates. The developers also intend to install two tennis courts and three padel courts.
Residents had objected to the plans saying they would undermine the openness of the rural area and the impact to the road network was a major concern. Developers said the loss of the golf course, though a shame, was impossible to avoid given it had been running at a loss for several years.