Northern Ireland Conservatives' spokesman, Harry Cullen, has welcomed the decision to grant planning permission for a £100 million golf resort at Runkerry, near Bushmills.
“A resolution to this planning dispute is long overdue”, Harry said, “but thank goodness the right determination has eventually been reached”.
“The new resort will bring much needed jobs to the area and it will add an exciting new dimension to a tourism product for which we are justly world famous. With the success of our major winners and the Irish Open coming to Portrush next year, the North Coast can already claim to be the world capital of golf. This new development will give us yet another destination links course, alongside the type of accommodation and luxury resort experience which we have not always been able to boast.”
“Indeed the course will be sited on the McNaughton estate, which boasts world-class pheasant shooting and some of the finest salmon fishing in Ireland, alongside the scenic River Bush. The new resort has all the ingredients to become a magnet for a particularly lucrative sector of the tourist market. The best comparison is perhaps Scotland's mighty Gleneagles Hotel which offers a similar range of high end facilities.”
“It's wonderful to see an ex-pat making such a valuable investment. Dr Alistair Hanna should be congratulated for his enterprise and for the patience he showed while this project passed through Northern Ireland's Byzantine planning system. Now that it's good to go, the Runkerry resort may well become the crown jewel of the leisure industry here. After 10 years, let's hope we see an early start to the work, with no more bureaucratic delays.”