At a Council meeting in January Western Park Golf Course received a stay of execution when many local councillors spoke out in support of keeping the course open. One by one they spoke of the benefits the course brings to the community and what a shame it would be to waste this asset without at least exploring every possible way of keeping it open. Following this, a decision was made to delay rubber stamping the closure of the course and a motion (raised by Councillor Susan Barton) to “refer the decision back to the executive to allow further business plans to be considered” was unanimously backed by the whole Council. It was decided that there would be no deadline for this and business plans would be considered right up to the proposed closure at the end of October 2015. The committee at Western Park Golf Course is now putting the finishing touches to a business plan that we hope will convince Sir Peter Soulsby to keep the course open. Key objectives are to remove the financial burden on the Council, to demonstrate a self -sustainable financial plan to allow the course to continue, to maintain the course as an asset of the people of Leicester. In order to sway the decision of the Mayor we will require the backing of local councillors and the community. As is understandable, there is a lot of negativity surrounding the course's future. However, the statement was made that the closure of the course was not because of the capital gain from selling the land and that it was due to the fact the course was losing money and the council could no longer afford to run it. Our business plan will remove these costs. We have received expert advice from a small group of people with many years of knowledge in the industry. They have given up their time for free as they believe as I do that the course is worth saving and could easily be viable again. Given the chance this group of people will help us make this work. Whatever happens the course will be open until the end of October but we hope to keep it open for many years to come. Please find below a link to the video of the council meeting. http://www.leicester.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/160977 I don't need to preach about the benefits the course brings to the local community as the councillors have already done it. All we want is for the council to give proper consideration to our business plan as was agreed back in January