The prestigious Bristol & Clifton club is set for a battle with nature lovers next door
Plans to expand a golf club near Bristol could harm a population of toads living nearby, claim environmentalists(Image: Bristol Post)
Battle lines are being drawn in the countryside just outside Bristol, where a plan to expand one of the city’s most illustrious golf courses has sparked fury among local residents and nature-lovers, who say it threatens a famous colony of toads.
The Bristol & Clifton Golf Club, which was formed in 1891, has asked North Somerset Council planners for permission to create a new ‘academy course’, which would consist of nine, par-three holes to the north of the course they have called home for the past 135 years.
But the plans have triggered a deluge of objections – dozens in the past couple of days alone – for two reasons. Firstly, the plan would see a heavy lorry drive into or away from the expansion site – along a narrow country lane – every six minutes of every working day for two years. And secondly, people who visit and love the famous Abbot’s Pool nearby, say they fear it will destroy the fragile habitat of the large medieval lake, which is home to a huge colony of toads and other wildlife.
Bristol & Clifton Golf Club, which is based north of Failand on the other side of Ashton Court from Bristol itself, said it would like to expand to create a new ‘academy course’ to help people – especially young golfers – get into the sport. Many big clubs have junior courses on the side, which provide a more accessible entrance to the sport.
The club has told North Somerset’s planners that, as of May 2025, there were 953 playing, and 117 non-playing, members of the club. “The club was recently awarded the ‘Junior Club of the Year’ at national awards. Relevant to this application is the fact that the overall membership includes 142 under 18’s and 142 members who are aged 75 and over,” a planning report written on behalf of the golf club to support the application said.
An image of Bristol & Clifton Golf Club, near Failand in North Somerset. Abbots Pood is located in the background, in woods in the centre top of the image. The club wants to expand, and create an ‘academy course’ in the triangle shaped field in the centre of the image, in between the course and the Abbots Pool woods(Image: Google Earth)
“The Board of Directors and Management have been striving over the past few years to grow the junior membership – which has increased substantially from 49 in 2016 to the current 142. “This year the club was awarded the prestigious “Junior Club of the Year” Award – beating all other clubs in England – in recognition of the huge efforts that the club has made to encourage boys and girls into playing golf,” they added.
Creating a new, smaller, nine-hole course should be straightforward, but the fields next door will need to be landscaped – and that’s where the controversy begins. The soil on the plateau around Failand is notoriously thin, with hard bedrock just under the surface.
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The club said that means they will have to bring in soil to create the course, and lots of it – an estimated 326,135 tonnes of ‘suitable engineering material which will be subsoils or soil forming materials’.
The act of bringing that much material to the location is controversial in itself. The club’s own planning consultants estimate it will take two years. If the teams bringing in that much sub-soil work a nine hour day with a half day on Saturday mornings, it will require 43 loads a day, every day, which will mean 86 heavy lorry movements a day – 11 an hour, or one every six minutes, on average.
The plan is for the lorries to access the site not through the golf course itself, but along Weir Lane, a country lane connecting Failand with the entrance to Abbots Pool.
Abbots Pool
That has triggered objections from local residents and the regular visitors to Abbots Pool, who also say putting that much subsoil onto the land risks enough of it running off down the ditches and streams into Abbots Pool itself.
The pool and the surrounding woods are managed by the Woodland Trust, and a host of volunteers. One of them, Tim Martin, called on people to object and ‘help us protect Abbots Pool Nature Reserve and the hundreds of toads that breed there every year’. He said: “This will cause a huge amount of soil, and pollutants, to be washed straight into the pooi.
“Creating a sediment collecting basis with a reed bed filter must be a condition of this development. Their plans also involve trucking this soil down the narrow and tranquil Weir Land – one tipper truck every seven minutes for two years. A condition of the development must be that they take the soil over their own land, not down Weir Lane,” he added.
Included in the planning application is a transport report and an ecology report. Neither mentions Abbots Pool, but the ecology report tells North Somerset council that, ultimately, the golf course extension would be a ‘net-gain’ for biodiversity, because it will see trees being planted and the creation of three new ponds on the land to provide water for the golf course’s irrigation.
In a response written on Christmas Eve, the Environment Agency said the plan did not require their input, as it would not affect the environment of the area – something local residents and fans of Abbots Pool disagree with.
Abbots Pool in North Somerset(Image: Dan Regan/Bristol Live)
One of the many who have objected over the last couple of days said: “As the North Somerset chairperson of the Local Access Forum, I object to this planning application. This will not just affect a beautiful location used by walkers, cyclists, horse riders and families as a bridleway runs through the location and links to other bridleways and access routes on the edge of Ashton Court.
“It is highly likely to affect Abbots Pool Nature Reserve and the hundreds of toads that breed there every year, as the intention is to spread 300,000 tonnes of waste soil in the fields just upstream from Abbots Pool. This will cause a huge amount of soil (and pollutants) to be washed straight into the pool. Creating a sediment collecting basin with a reed bed filter must be a condition of this development,” they added.
Another of the people who have objected this week to the plan told North Somerset Council: “I am a near neighbour who regularly walks in the area.
“I do not object to adding a few holes of golf but this is a massive soil dump which will provide the golf club with a huge sum of money. The landscape will be substantially changed, the existing soil structure ruined, the roads trashed by thousands of lorry trips and the lives of locals spoiled for months on end.
“Don’t be fooled by paid-for reports, this is a money-grabbing exercise to the detriment of landscape, local infrastructure, and nature. One of the most cynical and deceptive applications I have seen,” they added.
