Winchester<\/a> City Council approved the application from the YMCA Fairthorne Group on April 27.\n<\/p>\n\n ![]()
Fairthorne Manor YMCA in Botley (Image: Google)\n<\/p>\n
\n The clubhouse which was most recently used as a cafe has been out of use since September 2025 and the golf course, which was once a profitable venture for the YMCA Fairthorne Group, closed in 2013 due to a decline in membership and financial losses.\n<\/p>\n
\n At its peak in the 1990s, the club was generating a \u00a350,000 profit, but it eventually began losing the same amount yearly.\n<\/p>\n
\n The clubhouse, which was converted to serve as a family camping ground in 2015, has been underused since Covid and now stands empty.\n<\/p>\n
\n It will undergo internal alterations to provide dedicated nursery facilities, including playrooms, a baby room, and a baby change room.\n<\/p>\n
\n No external changes are planned except for the installation of one window in the north-western elevation to provide light to the proposed staff room.\n<\/p>\n
\n The building will also have an enclosed garden and play space around it.\n<\/p>\n
\n The nursery will operate from 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, throughout the year.\n<\/p>\n
\n The YMCA Fairthorne Group, which runs an existing nursery on site rated ‘good’ by Ofsted, will continue to operate the new nursery as a not-for-profit venture.\n<\/p>\n
\n This development comes in response to a growing need for more pre-school places in the locality, particularly with the expanding population in the district, including Botley and Whiteley.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Fairthorne Manor site, which covers 95 acres of land, is home to a variety of facilities, including camping grounds, woodlands, a lake, a boathouse, numerous activity zones, and a sports hall.\n<\/p>\n
\n The YMCA Fairthorne Group has been based on the Fairthorne Manor site for 60 years, running a range of services such as outdoor education<\/a> programmes, housing, and counselling for young people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Planning permission has been granted to convert the disused clubhouse at Fairthorne Manor Golf Course, Botley Road, Curbridge,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-556503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556503","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=556503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}