The Wye Valley Visitors Centre in Whitchurch, Ross-on-Wye, plans to install a ‘King Arthur’ themed indoor adventure golf course, to accompany the Butterfly Zoo, which attracts visitors all-year-round.
The planning application, which was lodged recently with Herefordshire Council, states a proposed change of use for the former Garden Centre glasshouse. The major investment will transform the glasshouse into an indoor adventure golf course and a service area.
The golf course will also have an unhindered critical path to enable full access for mobility scooters and wheelchairs without diversion.
The development will not change the exterior vernacular of the former use of the site as horticultural greenhouses. The existing external walls will be changed from horticultural glass to double skin translucent pearl polycarbonate panels for safety, seclusion and security. They will also construct an internal compartment partition wall, opening the former plant sales area for overflow parking.
The outdoor plant retail area is to be converted to extend the existing unpaved overspill car parking for the whole of the Wye Valley Vistors Centre.
There will also be an installation of feather banners at the building’s entrance, and at the Wye Valley Visitor Centre gate, to replace and integrate with former and existing signs and create a festive ambience.
The application states: “An indoor adventure golf course represents a substantial investment which would normally only be viable in a large city. The application building is ideal. It is very close to King Arthur’s Cave and co-located with the aMazing Hedge Puzzle, which was a location for the Merlin television series.
“There is no other indoor adventure golf facility in Herefordshire, nor elsewhere in the Wye Valley, in the Forest of Dean or Monmouthshire. The proposed course will enhance the all-weather four-season tourism offer of the county at the main point of access for tourists entering Herefordshire and the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Read more in this week’s Ross Gazette.