Fortrose and Rosemarkie Golf Club Erosion

Highland News & Media

Fortrose and Rosemarkie Golf Club president Douglas Simpson discusses the scale and impact of coastal erosion around the course.

Transcript

00:00 The first and second T's, we've almost lost these T's.

00:07 So it's been very dramatic, very surprising.

00:10 And as far as we can see, there's no other explanation for it

00:13 than it's the climate emergency, rising tides and bigger storms coming in.

00:18 I mean, a peninsula like this that's just made up of a glacial deposit,

00:22 there's always going to be erosion.

00:24 On the other side, there's been erosion and we've tried to deal with that,

00:27 but never, never in anything like this on a scale.

00:30 If this was to happen over a period of ten years,

00:32 we'd lose virtually the whole of the First Fairway

00:35 in a course that has been here since 1793.

00:38 Yeah.

00:39 So, I mean, that's a huge impact on the golf course and the golf club itself,

00:43 even not taking anything into account with the environmental side of it.

00:48 Exactly.

00:49 And, I mean, this peninsula is a very, very popular tourist attraction.

00:53 Golfers come from all over the world to play here

00:56 because it's a unique course, the location and so on,

00:58 and because it's such an old golf course,

01:00 the 15th oldest golf course in the world.

01:02 So, you've got Americans, you've got people from all over the world.

01:06 But the dolphin, the Potomac's dolphins at the Channery Point

01:11 are an enormous attraction as well.

01:13 So, you get walkers coming down the core path here.

01:17 And we've always existed with that.

01:20 We work harmoniously with the tourists that come here.

01:23 But now the path has gone.

01:26 So, pedestrians are walking through the golf course to get to the lighthouse,

01:30 and there's obviously big problems with that.

01:33 It's a huge financial undertaking for the club

01:37 and sort of anybody who wants to support the club

01:39 to fix these issues and get the path back into place.

01:43 Can you maybe talk us through some of the challenges that you've found with that so far?

01:46 Sure.

01:47 Well, the cost to protect the first and second tee,

01:51 which we're doing just now, there's a digger you'll see along the coast there,

01:55 that's protecting this.

01:56 We have to protect these two tees in the first instance,

01:59 otherwise it changes the golf course quite radically.

02:02 The cost to do that is over £100,000.

02:05 But there's of course the whole rest of the first fairway and part of the second fairway

02:09 needs protecting as well.

02:10 So, you can see the sort of figures that are involved.

02:13 And our intention is to work collaboratively with others involved,

02:17 like Highland Council and Scottish Water,

02:19 because there's a sewage pipe that runs along for about 100 yards here.

02:23 So we're raising as much money as we can.

02:26 We've got a GoFundMe site started and so on.

02:29 Scottish Water are making a contribution to this part here,

02:35 which will be about a third of the cost of what we're planning so far,

02:39 which is helpful.

02:40 We've found difficulty getting Highland Council involved,

02:44 although they're responsible for this path, which is now gone.

02:47 So, if we could get better collaboration, better communication with them,

02:52 that would really help our case, I think.

02:54 Attenborough recently did a feature on the bottlenose dolphins here.

02:58 So, it's a world-known area, this,

03:02 and we think it's very much in Highland Council's interest

03:07 to help us get this footpath back, to support what the golf club's trying to do.

03:11 We know councils don't have a surplus amount of money, shall we say,

03:17 and they have big problems.

03:18 But even if we could get more advice and sources of funding that they could lead us to

03:23 and help collaborate with us, we'd find that really helpful.

03:26 So, as far as the golf club goes, then, we're just coming into the summer months,

03:30 there's going to be peak tourist season in not too long.

03:32 What sort of impact do you envision this erosion having over the immediate future,

03:37 while you're maybe getting the repairs done?

03:39 Well, there's certainly going to be more golf balls on the beach,

03:42 because the fairways get narrower and narrower.

03:44 But, you know, when you've got hundreds of pedestrians using this path every day

03:49 and you've got golfers teeing off, and they're much closer to the golf course now,

03:53 and on the golf course than ever they were before,

03:56 you know, there's a health and safety implication there we need to take really seriously.

04:01 So, that's the implications we're worried about.

04:04 The other thing is, we're coming into spring, there's going to be spring tides,

04:08 and there's going to be even more damage done to the golf course.

04:11 So, it's not something that can wait for a year or two years,

04:13 it's something that we have to tackle now.

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