A DECISION will be made on the future of Gunnersbury Park Bowls Club at a Hounslow Borough planning committee meeting on Thursday, June 24.

The planning officer's report is set to be presented at the meeting and it's likely that it will recommend councillors approve the proposal to convert the club's pavilion into a café/restaurant as part of a new Putt in the Park mini-golf course.

The previous application was considered by the planning committee in January, but it was deferred, after the officer recommended the committee refuse the proposals.

If the proposal is approved, this would mark the end of a long campaign to save the bowls club, with a petition opposing this closure being signed by over 600 people.

The officer's report states: "Having reviewed the wider context of the scheme, and received further details of the use of the park together with letters of support from Gunnersbury Park CIC and LB Hounslow and LB Ealing Leisure teams, it is considered that the community use in this case is Gunnersbury Park as a whole (rather than the various activities/area that make it up) and there is a detailed and long term plan for the maintenance of this community asset.

"Given the specific details of the case, the proposed conversion and alterations would be in accordance with the long-term community aspirations of the park and would not constitute a deviation from the Development Plan."

Chairman of the Friends of Gunnersbury Park and Museum, James Wisdom, said: "The row over the Bowls Club is not a private conflict between the bowlers on the one hand, and the CEO and the Board of the CIC on the other.

"It is a direct challenge to the values and methods of those who manage Gunnersbury, and one they are comprehensively failing.

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"In its desperation to earn an income, this CIC has focussed hard on commercial opportunities, some of which have been welcomed while others have damaged its relationship with the surrounding community.

"It seems to have had no strategy for supporting smaller scale activity which could benefit groups in the community like the Bowls Club, which had operated in this public park for over 90 years.

"Despite being vested with public assets, its whole approach has been one of 'ownership' and with it an entitlement to privacy."