PLANS to demolish an Essex golf range and replace it with a housing estate for elderly and disabled people have failed for the third time.

Maldon District Council voted last night (October 6) to refuse an application to demolish Woodham Mortimer Golf Range and replace it with 25 new bungalows.

The houses were designed for retired and disabled people and the wider development would also have included public open space with an equipped play area.

But the North Western Area Planning Committee decided the proposals represented an unjustified loss of employment, and the loss of a community, leisure, tourism and sports facility.

It was also said that the development was located in an unsustainable location where future residents would be overly reliant on private transport.

Officers at the meeting said the applicant was willing to provide affordable units despite there being no formal legal agreement forcing it to do so.

Councillor for Great Totham, Richard Siddall said this was “not good enough” for him to support the proposals.

He said: “I think if the applicant could provide that sort of information to us, or bring forward with that sort of information in an application, then that might change my view, but at the moment just being willing to me is not good enough.”

Clive Morley, councillor for Tolleshunt D’Arcy, said: “It seems as if there’s good employment and using local labour, it seems to be they’d like to keep it that way rather than perhaps do away with that and just put houses up.”

Two public comments on the application were submitted via the council’s website ahead of the meeting.

A nearby resident wrote: “As a Parish resident with four children, two under six years old, I would like to support this application especially for the new open space and play facilities it proposes to include.

“The size of the properties will also be good for first time buyers and smaller developments like this in villages rather than just big estates on the edge of Maldon is a welcome alternative.

“Given the well publicised problem Maldon has with its five year housing supply, this development should be supported.”

The application sought outline permission for the demolition of the building and replacement of the driving range and pitch and putt with up to 25 new one and two-bedroom single storey dwellings and public open space with an equipped play area, as well as access to the site.

An application to build eight two-storey houses was refused on June 28, 2017, and another to build 25 one and two-storey bungalows was refused on October 16, 2020.

In the previous application, the houses would have been marketed specifically for retired and disabled people and advertised solely to Maldon residents for an agreed period of time before going on the open market.

In this current application, the bungalows would still be suitable for retired and disabled people, but would not have been specifically marketed as such.