OPERATING times for Barnard Castle’s popular mini-golf course have been revised after an experiment to extend daily opening to take into account the Scottish school holidays did not prove a success.
The course, on Scar Top, will reopen for the season on Friday, March 30, before closing on Sunday, October 28. During that period, the course will be open every weekend, on bank holidays and daily during local school holidays.
Last year, the main summer opening was extended from six to eight weeks to see if the course would attract visitors in the area from north of the border.
That has now been scrapped and the course will be open daily for the six-week local school holidays.
The mini golf is operated by Barnard Castle Town Council and Cllr Roger Peat, chairman of the services committee, said: “It did not work out with the Scottish holidays.”
Committee members were told low season opening times – March 30 to May 25 and September 3 to October 28 – would be 10.30am to 4.30pm. The course will be open from 10am to 6pm in peak season.
Since the town council oversaw a major revamp of the course, it has attracted thousands of visitors and become self funding.
A team of five attendants are based at the kiosk, which doubles as a leaflet distribution point for Visit Durham.
In an effort to increase the number of visitors, the town council is to spend £50 on a banner advertising the mini golf which will be hung in the frame due to be erected at the entrance to Scar Top when it is not being used to promote other events in the town.
The town council has also agreed to spend up to £1,215 installing an electricity supply to the kiosk. The work should be completed in early March, members of the services committee were told.
![A COUNTY councillor is backing a campaign to get a pedestrian crossing in Staindrop. Frustrated parish councillors in the village summoned their county council representative Cllr George Richardson to their latest meeting to discuss several issues, including the call for a safe way to cross the A688. Earlier this year their request for a crossing was turned down by the county council’s highways officers. Parish council chairman Jonothan Raper described the reasons for the refusal as “spurious” and called on Cllr Richardson to support their campaign. He added: “One of the arguments they made was there is no clear line of desire when they studied the village – well this isn’t a clear line of desire because there isn’t a crossing, people cross whenever they can. “When the lollipop person was there, one of the things I noticed was people would walk all the way down to the lollipop person to cross the road to go to the shop or to go to the school.” He added a problem of parking at the primary school is exacerbated because people are too afraid to walk their children across the road. Cllr Richardson said he had supported previous attempts for a crossing point with the first being made about 15 years ago. He added: “We went fairly well down the road with that and they looked into it. The only recommended place was where the bus stop is and to get the visibility splays, people on the other side of the road would lose their parking. “That didn’t go down well so it just died a death.” Cllr Raper said he suspected the real reason for the officers’ refusal was the cost of installing a crossing. He added that much of the cost could be recovered from savings made on not having to employ a lollipop patrol. Cllr Raper said: “A lollipop person only provides a benefit of crossing for three hours of the day. You are getting 21 extra hours of crossing time [with a pedestrian crossing].” Cllr Richardson said he would raise the issue with the county council’s cabinet member for highways, Cllr John Shuttleworth.](https://teesdalemercury.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/georgeR-120x86.jpg)
