Petition launched to save popular golf course in Milton Keynes

Evolve Project Management want to convert the course to nine holes and build houses, a hotel and a sports hub on the rest of the site.

It would then be fenced off to prevent public access.

Residents formed a Friends of Windmill Hill Group and are urging MK Council not to sell or lease the facility.

The petition, which already has hundreds of signatures, demands that Windmill Hill remains as a municipal 18-hole course and any investment should be used to improve it, not develop it for housing.

The protesters say Evolve's plans would lead to only one municipal golf course, Abbey Hill, being left in Milton Keynes to up to half a million people.

They say the development scheme would lead to traffic congestion of surrounding roads, loss of green open space and damage to the environment.

The community would also suffer from loss of access to a site which has been publicly accessible to local residents for more than 40 years and is used on a daily basis by walkers and dog walkers.

You can view the petition here.