The “home of golf” is making room for a few new tenants. Plans for a new hotel and resort development next to the existing Rutherford Castle Golf Club in Peebleshire were approved in December.
The plan, which includes upgrades in the Rutherford golf facility, is designed to establish the £50 million project on the same scale as Gleneagles and Loch Lomond.
Manor Kingdom Estates will be the property developer for the new resort, with the five-star hotel to be managed by De Vere, the hotel group which also runs Cameron House Hotel at Loch Lomond. In addition to the hotel and golf course, the resort is to include a leisure club, restaurant and conference center.
The new resort in the Scottish Borders area is the latest in a series of recent approvals for new golf activity in Scotland. Donald Trump’s 36-hole hotel and luxury residential project on the Menie Estate near Balmedie, Aberdeenshire, was recently approved by the Scottish government after being turned down initially at the local level.
Both Jack Nicklaus and Scottish golfer Paul Lawrie are involved in golf resort developments in Stonehaven and at Blairs College, respectively, near Aberdeenshire. Another project involving a golf course and 100-bed hotel in Whitekirk, East Lothian, has also been approved in recent months.