Planning approval for course improvements at Royal Portrush Golf Club

These crucial works will directly facilitate the club’s hosting of The Open Championship in 2025, a world-renowned sporting event.

The works will involve the regrading of a number of holes across both courses at the club to improve golfers’ playing experience. This will be achieved through measures such as the relocation of tees, changes to course topography, including the reshaping of fairways and the formation of dunes, and the addition of bunkers. These changes have been carefully designed to preserve and enhance the landscape which makes up Royal Portrush, given that it is this natural beauty which makes the club such an attractive location for major golf tournaments. 

The economic opportunity of hosting The Open, the largest sporting event ever staged on the island of Ireland, is hugely significant. Independent research undertaken in 2019, when Royal Portrush first hosted The Open, estimated it brought over £100 million of investment to Northern Ireland. This is set to increase on the second occasion of the tournament coming to Royal Portrush, with the staging of The Open in 2025 expected to attract up to 250,000 spectator admissions.  

Commenting on this achievement, Gravis Planning’s Managing Director of Planning, Richard Bowman, said, “We are extremely pleased to have secured this critical planning approval on behalf of Royal Portrush Golf Club. Planning was secured in just four months following the submission of the major planning application. We would like to thank everyone involved in making this happen, including the Planning Department at Causeway Coast & Glens Borough Council, local elected representatives who provided strong cross-party support, the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, and the Department for the Economy. This was a real team effort and couldn’t have happened without co-operation from all of those involved.” 

“We are all now looking forward to welcoming the golfing world to Portrush in 2025 for what will be a fantastic festival of sport, in a truly iconic setting on Northern Ireland’s north coast.”