Bootle Golf Course £20m Plan: What's Proposed and What It Means for Public Golf

If you play Bootle Golf Course, walk its paths or live off Dunnings Bridge Road, the £20m plan announced this week will change your corner of Netherton. Former Everton striker Victor Anichebe's company, Lumira Group, says it has submitted a planning application for a hotel, clubhouse, padel courts and five-a-side pitches beside the course.

We went through Sefton Council's planning register to see what has been lodged. As of Sunday 18 October, the only live application for the golf course address is a separate scheme for seven padel courts and a football pitch, submitted by Powerleague Fives Ltd. The Lumira hotel and clubhouse application is not yet listed on the public register. Nothing has planning permission.

What Lumira Group and Sefton Council are proposing

The partnership was first announced by Sefton Council in March 2026. Under the deal, Lumira would lease the unused land at the corner of Dunnings Bridge Road and Boundary Road to build a new leisure development. The council put the private investment at around £20m.

The March plans listed a modern clubhouse, a hotel, padel courts and leisure and community facilities, including a podcast space. When the council and Lumira said the application had gone in, on 16 October, five-a-side pitches had been added to the list, according to Place North West and The Golf Business.

Neither announcement gives the number of hotel rooms, the number of courts or pitches, building heights or a site plan. Those details will be in the application documents once Sefton publishes them.

Sefton Council leader Cllr Marion Atkinson called the submission "an important step in bringing forward our vision for this site." Victor Anichebe said Lumira looked forward "to engaging with local people as the planning process progresses."

The application on Sefton's planning register

Searching Sefton's Public Access planning site for Bootle Golf Course brings up one live application. It is not in Lumira's name.

The file lists 26 documents, including a planning statement, a community benefit statement, an employment and skills plan, a letter of support from the Lawn Tennis Association, a transport statement, a travel plan, a three-part flood risk assessment and a floodlight detail drawing. A drawing of a facilities unit was added on 14 October. The council's contaminated land and local plans teams have both submitted consultee comments.

Powerleague is one of the UK's best-known five-a-side operators, and the public announcements mention both padel and five-a-side. Sefton Council and Lumira have not said whether this application is the padel and pitches element of Lumira's scheme or a separate deal. Until one of them confirms it, treat them as two applications.

Planning applications can take days or weeks to appear on the register after they are submitted, while the council checks the forms and fee. The absence of the hotel application on 18 October does not mean it was not submitted. It does mean nobody can yet read the drawings.

What happens to public golf at Bootle

This is the part golfers will care about most. Bootle is an 18-hole council course: Sefton sets its green fees and lists them on its golf pages. Place North West puts the course at 125 acres.

The March announcement went further than the land lease. The council said it and Lumira would "explore a potential future management agreement" for the golf course itself, which it said would bring substantial improvements. That would be a bigger change than a hotel on a vacant corner, because it would put day-to-day running of a public course in private hands.

The council has made four commitments for any such agreement:

• green fees for existing members, local residents, juniors and over-65s will stay affordable, with any change going through the council's fees and charges process
• existing public rights of way across the course will be maintained
• security will be improved
• current golf course staff will not be negatively affected

For reference, the council's current price list shows an adult 18-hole round at £16 on weekdays and £19 at weekends and bank holidays, with a cheaper over-60s rate, a £10 twilight ticket and free golf for juniors with a junior membership. No changes to those prices have been proposed in public.

"Affordable" has not been defined, and no management agreement has been published or approved. If one comes forward, it is a council decision separate from planning permission.

Dunnings Bridge Road is filling up with padel courts

The register shows Bootle is not the only padel scheme on Dunnings Bridge Road:

• Park Hotel, 5 Dunnings Bridge Road: permission granted on 18 December 2025 (DC/2024/02025) for a five-storey, 40-room hotel extension and a seven-court padel facility with a café. A later application split the work into two phases, with the padel courts in phase one.
• IDR Logistics, 10 Dunnings Bridge Road: an application (DC/2026/01318) for offices and a five-court indoor padel centre, validated in August and still awaiting a decision.
• Bootle Golf Course: seven padel courts in the Powerleague application, plus whatever Lumira's scheme includes.

If all three were built, that would be at least 19 padel courts on one road. Planners will have to weigh what that means for parking, floodlighting and traffic, and operators will have to judge how many courts one corridor can fill.

Earlier plans for the golf course

The course has been here before. The register holds a 2010 application for a single-storey clubhouse, shop and floodlit driving range bays, and a 2020 application for a 10-bay driving range with floodlights, paths and fencing.

In February 2024, a separate applicant applied to build a four-court padel facility with a reception and changing rooms on the former tennis courts at Bootle Golf Club (DC/2024/00315). That application was withdrawn in May 2024.

The questions that still need answers

• Is the Powerleague padel and football application part of Lumira's £20m scheme, and who would be Powerleague's landlord?
• When will the Lumira hotel and clubhouse application appear on the register, and what is its reference number?
• How many hotel rooms, padel courts and pitches are proposed, and how tall are the buildings?
• Does any part of the scheme sit on land that is currently playable golf course or protected open space?
• What does "affordable" mean for green fees, and will a management agreement come to a public council meeting?
• What rent will Lumira pay for the council land, and for how long is the lease?

L1Local will add the answers, and the second application's details, when they are published.

How to comment and what happens next

To comment on the padel and football application, open DC/2026/01604 on Sefton's planning site and choose Make a Comment. The consultation date shown is Saturday 24 October, and the council's target decision date is Friday 20 November.

For the hotel and clubhouse, search "Bootle Golf Course" or "Boundary Road" on Sefton Public Access over the coming days. Once it is registered it will open its own consultation. Comments carry most weight when they deal with planning matters such as traffic, noise, lighting, loss of open space and design. If you are not sure whether to go to a councillor, the council or the Combined Authority, our guide to how local government works on Merseyside sets out who does what.

For more from the north of the city, see our north Liverpool area guide.