John Lewis set to sell Berkshire golf club to nearby club
By Alistair Dunsmuir
A golf club in Berkshire that’s owned by the John Lewis Partnership as a benefit for its employees has been put up for sale, with a nearby club set to buy it.
The Winter Hill Golf Club site has been owned by the operator of the John Lewis department stores and Waitrose supermarkets for the last 85 years.
The 200-acre site was bought by John Lewis Partnership founder John Spedan Lewis in 1938 with the vision that he would create a golf course. However, the club was not opened until 1976, 13 years after his death, having been kept as farmland during the Second World War.
Since then, John Lewis staff have been able to get a discounted rate on membership for the golf club, although the club is also open to outside members.
While the club is treated as a benefit for employees, just 20 percent of Winter Hill Golf Club members are working or retired John Lewis Partnership staff and their family.
John Lewis told staff this week that it would be shutting the site by the end of April, with plans to sell the course, the clubhouse and two residential properties.
A spokesman said: “This isn’t a decision we took lightly. However, the golf club is no longer used as the employee benefit it once was, with just one in five members now having a link to the partnership.
Winter Hill Golf Club. Image from Facebook
“With a high level of investment required, for a very small internal audience, we have decided that Winter Hill is no longer the best use of our resources.”
The John Lewis Partnership is due to make £350 million in debt repayments by the middle of 2025.
John Lewis is in talks with nearby golf club Maidenhead Golf Club, which is considering moving to the site.
Maidenhead’s chairman, Paul Louden, said the club is expecting to exchange contracts within the next two months.
The 132-acre Maidenhead club has until the end of 2025 to leave the site after it relinquished its lease to its local council for a reported nearly £16 million in order to enable the development of up to 1,800 homes, a primary, secondary, and nursery school, a local centre, and public open space.
Louden said: “We think it’s a great opportunity to survive. Maidenhead Golf Club will be 127 years old this year and we don’t want to throw that away.
“It’s trying to get that success continuing and [the purchase] would be great because Maidenhead doesn’t want to lose two golf courses in a space of a few months, which is where we’re at if members don’t vote for it.
“It’s very difficult to see what the other alternatives are.”
Once the contracts are exchanged, 400 Maidenhead Golf Club members will vote at the next extraordinary general meeting if they want to move to Winter Hill.
By Alistair Dunsmuir
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Never knowingly undersold
Why on earth are RBWM giving Maidenhead Golf Club 16million for the remaining 2 years of their lease ? by all means find them an alternative club site – considerably less than 5 million – but use the remaining money for the benefit of the Borough….I’m sure the hospitals and schools would welcome and greatly benefit from a cash injection. What would Maidenhead GC do with this money ? Share it amongst members ? So they get a replacement club AND their golf fees paid for several years ! I’m sure the needier residents of the Borough will be most impressed !
Talking as a current member of Winter Hill this whole episode has been an utter farce from start to finish.
The way John Lewis has handled this, cosying up to Maidenhead GC for months without approaching the members first is truly unbelievable.
Happily the members have fought back with their own bid and GetGolfing a recognised charity that saves golf courses is going to put a fully funded bid in.
Go Go Project Phoenix and shame on you John Lewis and Maidenhead who haven’t once engaged with the 600+ members of Winter Hill. They just want to move their stuff in and throw all our history in the bin.
Good luck with Get Golfing, although they will save the course, the style of Membership and the way you are used to the club being run, will change. Happened with the club in Brentwood, lost loads of members, as they were not happy with the way they were crammed in with other players on a tee time, when they just wanted 2/3 ball play. Did that with competitions events, too. Money spinner.
What a shame this deal will be done at a cost of £16m to the taxpayers of RBWM, and will bring about the destruction of over 10,000 mature trees and other ecologically important species. Hardly consistent with the climate strategy that John Lewis profess to (https://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/csr/our-strategy/climate-action.html). Extremely disappointing from a company we all expect better from.
I might also be wrong but I think you have read this wrong…. Sounds to me like It was Maidenhead GC involved in the £16m deal NOT John Lewis who have simply looked for a buyer for their own under-utilised property?
Maidenhead GC could go elsewhere if they wanted (or even fold) and John Lewis would then have no involvement in the wholesale destruction you refer to…
Good luck with Get Golfing, although they will save the course, the style of Membership and the way you are used to the club being run, will change. Happened with the club in Brentwood, lost loads of members, as they were not happy with the way they were crammed in with other players on a tee time, when they just wanted 2/3 ball play. Did that with competitions events, too. Money spinner.
Such a shame to hear the closure of WHGC. I have so many great memories from becoming a junior member back in 1981 as a 10 year old, junior captain, men’s club champion when still only 16, representing them at county, regional & in national tournaments, my lowest round of 6 under par 66 but most of all the friends in made of the years.
Hopefully the members are able to find other clubs to join in the area.