\n Wearside Golf Club, near Washington, has been given the green light to develop its 15.5-acre practice site into a new facility, including a driving range, short course, and putting green.\n<\/p>\n
\n It marks a significant expansion for the North East golf course.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hailing the approval, Steve Belchamber, club secretary, said: “This provides a wonderful opportunity, not only for the members of Wearside Golf Club, but for the general public of Sunderland to come and use what will be a brand new facility.”\n<\/p>\n
\n However, the proposal sparked 67 public responses, with 49 objections and 18 in support.\n<\/p>\n
\n Objections were primarily focused on highway safety, horse-riding safety, and environmental impact from construction traffic.\n<\/p>\n
\n To alleviate concerns, a Sunderland City Council committee placed conditions on the development, including rerouting existing access routes.\n<\/p>\n
\n Although the proposal was deemed inappropriate for the green belt, the committee felt that “very special circumstances” justified its approval.\n<\/p>\n
\n A planning committee meeting resolved that it was minded to approve, subject to a referral to the Secretary of State.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, on December 15, 2025, the Secretary of State decided not to call in the application, leaving the decision to the local planning authority.\n<\/p>\n
\n Final approval was granted on January 16 by Sunderland City Council<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wearside Golf Club, near Washington, has been given the green light to develop its 15.5-acre practice site into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-380742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}