North Staffs Greens to take a leading role in the campaign to protect Keele Golf Course. By Adam Colclough

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Keele Golf Course on the outskirts of Newcastle-under-Lyme closed in 2015, since then it has become somewhere valued by the local community as a place to exercise and connect with nature.

Soon after closing the golf course was identified by Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council as a site suitable to be developed for housing as part of its joint Local Plan with nearby Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

This has since been through several iterations since 2017 with the partnership between the two councils collapsing and the whole project being put on hold by the pandemic. The borough council is now in the process of preparing a new Local Plan, this is due to be published in the Autumn and a public consultation will take place early next year.

The golf course straddles the communities of Keele and Silverdale, the residents and Parish Councils of both have opposed the development plans from the outset. In 2019 Save Our Green Space (SOGS) was formed to coordinate the campaign to protect the site.

Over the last weekend in May activists from North Staffs Green Party, along with other organizations met with SOGS members at Keele Village Hall to discuss how they can work in partnership.

A spokesperson for North Staffs Greens said “we are all even more aware now of the value of green spaces to communities and the borough council are misreading the needs of local people by planning to develop this site”.

The meeting heard from representatives from both parish councils who described how residents make use of the former golf course as a place to exercise and reconnect with nature and the damaging impact its development would have on both communities.

Concern was also expressed about the lack of infrastructure to support any development and the risk of the two communities losing their distinct identities were a thousand extra houses to be built on their doorstep.

SOGS have already tried, unsuccessfully, to have the golf course registered as a public common and as an asset of community value. It was suggested that any future challenge to the development plans should focus on their legality.

Activists from North Staffs Green Party spoke about the successful role they played late last year in the campaign to improve Cannock Chase and call they had made to the borough council to join Liverpool City Council in giving their parks and green spaces protection in perpetuity.

The long-term vision put forward for the golf course by SOGS is for it to be used as a shared green space by the community with light touch management by a committee run by residents.

It was agreed that SOGS, the two parish councils and other supportive groups including North Staffs Green Party would form an alliance to share skills and coordinate future campaign activity.

This will be linked to a wider effort to protect green spaces across the county from unnecessary development.

A spokesperson for North Staffs Greens said “this is exactly the sort of positivity we need to protect green spaces across the county from development so they can be enjoyed for generations to come, we are happy to give it our full support”.