GOLFERS in Cardross are staying tight-lipped over the rejection of plans to install more than a hundred solar panels on the roof of their clubhouse.
Cardross Golf Club lodged plans with Argyll and Bute Council for 108 photovoltaic panels to be installed on the B-listed clubhouse on the village’s Main Street.
But despite no objections being lodged, a planning officer from the local authority turned them down after labelling the panels “dominant, visually obtrusive and visually discordant” – despite admitting that there are already several “projections” on the clubhouse roof.
A club spokesperson said: “The committee is currently reviewing this decision and has no comment to make at this point.”
The property was added to Scotland’s register of listed buildings in 1996; the plans were rejected even though Historic Environment Scotland (HES), which is responsible for that register, did not make any comment on the application.
The planning officer who dealt with the application said: “The roof of Cardross Golf Club already has a number of projections.
“However, the photovoltaics by virtue of their number, appearance, size and positioning are prominent, incongruous features which would project above the existing roof plane.
“The panels are constructed from modern materials and appear as modern additions, alien and unsympathetic to the historic building.
“Juxtaposed against the traditional materials and architecture of this Category B listed building they are dominant, visually obtrusive and visually discordant.
“By placing this number of panels on the roof some of the historic fabric of the building is covered and lost, which has a detrimental impact on the character and appearance of this Category B listed building.”
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The clubhouse’s entry on the HES listed building register states that the building is “an important golf club of the post-war building period, built in the modern style”.
It adds: “There are very few Modernist golf clubhouses in the country. Painted white, the design also draws from Art-Deco 1930s architecture with its stream-lined, angular plan-form and large bowed-windowed communal rooms facing north and west towards the golf course.
“The combination of the Deco and Modernist style distinguish the building as a rare and distinctive example of its building type in the early post-war building period.”
The present building was erected to replace a previous clubhouse destroyed by enemy fire during the Second World War, though it has a similar height and footprint to its predecessor.
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