FORMER Oxford United chairman Firoz Kassam has opened a championship golf course in the grounds of a luxury hotel he owns in north Oxfordshire.

The 7,088-yard 18-hole course, described as the Gleneagles of the South by its owner, is the latest stage of a £50m business plan at Heythrop Park near Enstone.

Plans are also afoot to build a new 197-bedroom Crowne Plaza Hotel in autumn next year.

John Angus, operations director at Mr Kassam’s company, Firoka Heythrop Park, said: “We have created 20 new jobs at the golf club during the past month, in addition to another 20 taken on during the year to date.

“We currently employ another 100 staff at the existing Heythrop Hotel, and we intend to take on another 100 during the coming year.

“On top of that, our building and construction programme, in which we use local people wherever possible, employs another 100 or so people.”

The new clubhouse will open this weekend complete with swimming pool and health and fitness facilities.

The golf club, which will be limited to just 400 members, and 800 health club members, is inviting players to come forward and sample the facilities with a view to signing up. Its joining fee is £1,250 with an annual membership of £2,300.

In tandem with the construction of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Firoka is also developing Heythrop into a luxury hotel with 17 guest rooms in the main Grade II listed house and another 136 in adjoining wings.

Set in 440 acres of grounds, Heythrop Park was originally built by architect Thomas Archer in 1709 for Charles Talbot, the first (and only) Duke of Shrewsbury.

In 1831 fire swept through the building and it was left derelict until 1870 when railway tycoon Thomas Brassey bought it as a wedding present for his son Alfred. Then architect Alfred Waterhouse restored it in monumentally grand Victorian Baroque style.

The house and park became a Jesuit college for theological studies from 1925 until 1969, and then a training centre for the NatWest bank until 1999 when it was bought by Mr Kassam.

The redevelopment involved raising the roofs of the two wings of the main house, for which planning permission was granted in 2001.

Crowne Plaza is part of InterContinental Hotels, which also owns the Holiday Inn group — with which Mr Kassam has a long association. He operates the Holiday Inn next door to the Kassam Stadium in Oxford.

Christopher Quinton, former president and member of the Oxford and Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce, welcomed the new development.

He said: “This investment is great news for the Oxfordshire economy and I wish Mr Kassam good luck.”

business@oxfordmail.co.uk