Pig farmer tees up approach for Wigan leisure scheme

A 100-ACRE site earmarked for a golf course with driving range and a 96-boat marina complex in the Haigh/Aspull area of Wigan is on the market after owner David Bowling finally secured planning approval for the project.

Mr Bowling has already held talks with a Lancashire-based company about a joint venture partnership for the site but said he is also willing to consider offers from developers interested in bringing the scheme forwards.

He argues that the location, next to Haigh Hall Country Park, is spectacular.

“It is brilliant,” he said. “We had a Marina company from the Midlands who came up to see it and couldn’t believe how nice it was, because they think Wigan is all about rugby and pies. 

“Haigh Hall and this area is as nice as anywhere in England and we believe there is additional leisure/sporting benefit to come from the land”.

Mr Bowling had originally bought the former opencast mining site from British Coal with a view to putting agricultural buildings on it.

“Once swine fever and Foot and Mouth disease hit the market went into decline,” he said.

He then hatched a plan to create a leisure development on the site containing a golf course on either side of the Leeds-Liverpool canal. His intention was to embark on a speedy development of the site with a joint venture partner that would allow him to sell it and relocate to Australia.
 
“I had a pig breeding business here that was turning over £5m a year,” he said.

“And for a while, the Queensland government wanted Australia to be the Danish of the Far East and to feed the whole of the Pacific Rim with pork products, and for me to be part of that.”

An earlier scheme had initially been approved by Wigan MBC back in 1999, but it expired in 2004. Mr Bowling then spent two years working up a redeveloped proposal in which a 96-berth marina for canal boats and a new access road was added.

It was initially submitted in 2007, but Mr Bowling said that a combination of the economic outlook and a drawn-out process in agreeing section 106 terms has meant that planning approval has only just become approved in April 2011. 

A website with some basic details of the scheme can be found here:- www.newspringsgolfmarina.info.