Planning approval for major Lincolnshire leisure and wellness facility
Priory Park is to be an independent not-for-profit community site
Planning approval has been granted by councillors for a leisure and wellness facility on part of the former Lincolnshire Golf Club course, off Crowle Road, approximately two miles south of Crowle.
The mixed-use development will involve holiday lodges, a café, shop and offices, a community hub, a wild swimming pond with sauna facilities, four padel courts and restoration of walled gardens.
Priory Park, as it will be known, is expected to create 12 full and part time jobs directly on site, as well as 15 to 20 jobs via third-party operators. The golf course closed in 2023 and the site has been derelict since then.
The leisure and wellness retreat will cover the northern parcel of the former golf course and measures 14 hectares in area.
This includes wall gardens and stables associated with the adjacent Grade II-listed Hirst Priory, which has led to listed consent also being obtained for the Priory Park scheme. The stables used to be the golf clubhouse and will be turned into the café, a craft shop and a volunteers’ centre.
The scheme’s charitable purposes formed a key part of the application. Priory Park is to be an independent not-for-profit community site.
Applicant Rockscape Habitats Ltd, which has a freehold interest in the land, will run the commercial arm while The Rockscape Foundation will be the not-for-profit body based at Priory Park. The foundation will have a 30-year long leasehold on the land.
The aim is for Priory Park to be a holistic centre for health, wellbeing and education. It will offer subsidised use of the leisure facilities and secluded green spaces for target organisation groups and nature-based learning, and also subsidised use of a residential bunk barn, accommodating up to 16 people, for the likes of local schools and community groups.
The latter will create opportunities for residential learning on topics ranging from outdoor cooking to willow weaving. A community hub, constructed with natural timber, will be created as a multi-purpose building for activities including yoga, pilates and formal and informal teaching.
The park’s commercial elements, such as the café and up to 40 holiday lodges made up of 11 shepherd huts and 29 residential lodges, are intended to help raise the estimated £740,000 a year to continue running Priory Park. “The revenue generating uses such as the holiday lodges, leisure facilities, café and shop are of paramount importance to the scheme and are required to co-exist to provide financial sustainability,” state DPP Planning on behalf of Rockscape Habitats Ltd, in a planning document.
Approval has been granted, but with a number of conditions. This includes restricting the residential lodges to holiday use and not as a permanent address for anyone. Likewise, the residential bunk barn will be restricted to use for educational purposes only.