In November Victoria’s one-hundred-year-old Cheltenham Golf Club won its fight to extend its lease by twenty-one years.
The extension will allow for redevelopments that the club was otherwise unable to justify, given there had been only four years remaining on its lease prior to the extension.
Cheltenham Golf Club had plans in place for improving fencing and lowering the height of the fifth tee, but could not justify the $1.5 million safety works until the lease extension was approved.
As the site is on Crown Land, the decision was subject to ministerial approval. The club has been a public golf club since its inception.
Located a half-hour drive south from the Melbourne CBD, the club’s renewal had been in question after neighbouring Victoria Golf Club, an exclusive club around the same age as Cheltenham, opposed the move.
The Cheltenham club would not be where it is today without help from Victoria Club in the 1930s.
Yet general manager of Victoria Golf Club, Warwick Hill-Rennie, had called on local council to run a transparent, community-led process, claiming the Cheltenham club’s course maintenance was inadequate.
This opposition backfired, however, when the community-led club received overwhelming support to renew the lease, following the area’s largest community consultation on record.
Ninety-six per cent of Bayside Council voted in favour of extending the lease, with the receipt of over 1,200 unique responses via written submissions, surveys and Q&A contributions.
The council voted in favour of extending the lease on the condition that the club proceed with safety works.
“The lease renewal ensures that the site will be affordable and accessible for all members of our community for the foreseeable future,” said Bayside Mayor, Councillor Debbie Taylor-Haynes to the Herald Sun.
Phil Parker, Cheltenham’s President, said he was humbled by both the number of respondents and the council’s overwhelmingly favourable response, telling ClubTIC they were looking forward to the minister’s signature on their new lease.
“We have to dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’ to make sure we do the right thing by ratepayers,” Cr Andrew Hockley said.
“We have done our best to make sure this is fair and transparent, but we would be dumb as councillors to not recognise this as an amazing community asset.”
Hockley also queried why a mysterious bid for the land was made by Victoria Golf Club.
Julie Bond, women’s captain for Cheltenham said that maintenance of an accessible club was vital to increasing women’s participation in golf. She pointed to the fact that golf has always been a sport that connects people, and how the connection is further strengthened “when everybody feels welcome”.
The lease renewal was made on the grounds that the club is an affordable, inclusive and multi-use community asset that demonstrably delivers economic, environmental, health and social benefits.
