HOW refreshing to read the article (Tuesday’s Oxford Mail) about Tom Baker of Waterstock Golf Club giving golf lessons to special needs pupils as part of the Waterstock Golf Academy, which gives great pleasure to many youngsters throughout the year.

There are plans to expand the academy, but this is currently on hold due to the continuing delay in preparing the nine-hole, par three course.

Once this is completed the golf club can apply for further academy status, which will attract funding from outside sources to further expand and develop junior golf in the area.

However, the ongoing saga between the county council and Waterstock Golf Club, which has been back and forth to the courts since the mid-1990s, is stopping this further development.

Countless visits to the High Court, usually before a different judge each time, are costing the golf club owners and we ratepayers a great deal of money.

The costs so far run into many hundreds of thousands of pounds, the only beneficiaries of all of this being the legal profession.

The sooner this legal case is resolved, the better, both to stop the waste of taxpayers’ money, which would be better spent elsewhere in these times of austerity, and to assist the development of the sporting interests of young people from the wider community around Waterstock Golf Club.

KEITH WARD (senior chairman, Waterstock Golf Club) Combewell Garsington CLIVE HALLETT Templars Close Wheatley