Receiver appointed to New Forest

A receiver has been appointed to the prestigious New Forest Golf Club in Tyrrellspass, and a bid is to be made to sell the company as a going concern.Patrick Monaghan, of the firm KPMG in Dublin, was on Wednesday of last week appointed receiver and manager over the assets of the company.Mr. Monaghan stressed this week that the company is continuing to trade under his control while he examines its affairs."It is likely that the best interest of all parties will be served by the sale of the company's business as a going concern," he said.Mr. Monaghan has informed creditors that in his role as receiver, he has no authority to agree or pay the claim of unsecured creditors, but he is advising them to forward a statement of their account with the company, made up to the date of his appointment.New Forest's sister estate, Moyvalley Hotel and Golf Resort, has also come under Mr. Monaghan's control.Both developments were developed by the Northern Ireland firm, Eassda, which is owned by Alastair Jackson. New Forest is an 18 hole course over the 300 acre estate which surrounds the restored mansion house which has served as clubhouse for New Forest.The course was designed by renowned golfing figure, Peter McEvoy.The developers had major plans before the recession, to develop New Forest further, and in Alastair Jackson's first application to Westmeath County Council, in 2002 - which was refused - there's an indication of the intended overall scale of the development at New Forest, with permission sought for the golf course, and for the conversion of the period residence on the site to a country house hotel accommodating 28 bedrooms, lounge and dining areas and a fitness centre, and for the conversion of the stable block to 8 apartments, and the construction of 52 apartments "in courtyard style" in place of existing derelict buildings, and for the construction of 100 golf villas in three separate clusters within the estate. A scaled back application was submitted in 2003, seeking permission to provide 34 bedrooms in the hotel, as well as a conference centre, and to provide 35 apartments instead of the original 52, and 43 golf villas instead of the original 100. Later, there was an application for a new 100-bed hotel on the site, with a conference and leisure centre, and over the years, various amended applications were submitted to the Council.In February of this year, the group Director of Golf for Eassda Holdings, John Lawler, announced new reduced membership rates for prospective members of New Forest."People looking to join will now just have to pay their annual subscription of €1,000. Prior to that we were doing an annual membership which included a contribution to an eventual share purchase, bringing the subscription to €1,750."But we've taken €750 of that out and left the annual subscription of €1,000," he told the Westmeath Examiner at the time.