Ikast-Brande council grants golf project exemptions despite criticism

Ikast-Brande Municipal Council has granted exemptions on nearly all the matters concerning the expansion of Ikast Golf Club, despite objections from the municipality’s administration and strong criticism of the project. Thirteen of the 22 council members voted in favour, DR reports.

Jens Poulsen, who owns the golf course, left the council chamber relieved on Monday evening. He said he had felt publicly shamed during the controversy, which has involved legal questions, public criticism and what he described as a battle against the Jante Law.

“I have a clear conscience, and I can look people in the eye and say that we have not done anything deliberately wrong here,” Poulsen said as he left the chamber.

Poulsen is developing the course with the ambition of making it one of the best in the Nordic region. Ikast Golf Club is located on an old glacial hill that both the municipality and the state consider worthy of preservation.

During a speech to the council, Poulsen said the municipal administration had made a series of factual errors. He argued that Simon Vanggaard of the Danish People’s Party had placed too much emphasis on those errors.

“Something does not become more correct just because it is mentioned many times,” Poulsen said.

He acknowledged that he and the golf club had also made mistakes. According to Poulsen, some resulted from an application for a rural-zone permit that was approved and later withdrawn. The municipality’s website continued to list the permit as approved, he said, and the project team worked on that basis.

Mayor Ib Lauritsen of the Liberal Party defended the municipal employees during the meeting. He said the council was ultimately responsible for its decisions.

“It is low to target someone who cannot defend themselves. It is unacceptable,” Lauritsen said.

Replacement nature must be established

The project can now continue under the exemptions, including a requirement to establish replacement nature for protected natural areas that have been removed.

Further work will be needed, particularly in cooperation with Kasper Pauli Petersen of the Social Democrats, chairman of the Climate, Nature and Sustainability Committee, and Simon Vanggaard, chairman of the Development and Business Committee.

The two politicians have been the council’s most prominent critics. They argued, among other things, that the municipality should investigate whether there were grounds for reporting the matter to the police.

“We are not talking about minor mistakes and trivialities, but interventions in some of our most valuable landscapes and natural areas. We must grant exemptions when we can do so within the law, but we must also be able to say no,” Vanggaard said during the council meeting.

Poulsen said he was prepared to support such an investigation, but believed it should also examine the role of the two committee chairmen. He said he did not think they had fulfilled their responsibilities.

“Right now, I am at a disadvantage because two committee chairmen who are supposed to lead this project have such a clearly stated position,” Poulsen said after the meeting.