Business people urged to get behind plan for golf links at Inch

BUSINESS people in Kerry were yesterday urged to get behind a campaign to build a golf links, projected to create 65 jobs.

Plans for the links on a site at Inch, in the Dingle Peninsula, were conceived almost 20 years ago but have, so far, failed to get Government approval on environmental grounds.

Successive environment ministers have refused to give approval after being told by state experts, including the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), such a development would cause significant loss and damage to the habitat of the area. The 1,250-acre site for the proposed links is a candidate Special Area of Conservation (SAC).

However, the course designer, Arthur Spring, yesterday claimed some of the reports which provided a basis for ministerial decisions were seriously flawed and contained inaccuracies.

He also claimed a links would help rather than damage the environment which features sand dunes at the rear of Inch beach.

“There would be no damage to the dunes. All we would be doing would be cutting grass between dunes to allow golf to be played.

“A golf links which I laid out in Castlegregory, on the other side of the Dingle Peninsula, is working very much in favour of flora and fauna,” Mr Spring said.

He insisted a world-class golf links could be built within 12 months, at Inch, without damaging the environment and would be of huge economic benefit.

“There are people in America waiting to write cheques to become members. A links at Inch would be in the top 20 in the world in a short time,” he told Radio Kerry.

An Bord Pleanála approved the project in 1997, but it has since been held up due to conservation and environmental issues.

But Mr Spring, who met Environment Minister John Gormley last year and has since written to him up to five times on the issue, said he was still hopeful the project would go ahead.

The Department of the Environment has indicated a response will be issued shortly.

Mr Spring, meanwhile, called on business people, hoteliers, bed and breakfast owners and others to exert pressure on the department to give the go-ahead to the project.

Ministerial approval is needed because the land in question has been earmarked for a SAC.

A proposal announced earlier this month by Mr Gormley to make the Castlemaine Harbour area a Special Protection Area (SPA) is seen as a further blow to the golf links plan, as the area covered would include Inch.