Ikast-Brande Kommune’s development and business committee decides Wednesday whether to legalize a parking lot and a golf equipment wash station built without permission at Jens Poulsen’s Tullamore golf club north of Ikast.
According to reporting by DR, the clothing billionaire has already established both facilities at Tullamore without the required municipal approval. The case reaches the udviklings- og erhvervsudvalg in Ikast-Brande Kommune on Wednesday, September 23.
The committee is being asked to adopt a new local plan for the area. The municipal administration recommends that the parking lot and the rest of the project be approved and legalized, DR reports. The wider project includes converting the existing clubhouse into seven apartments.
Poulsen declined an interview with DR. He stated that his advisers contacted the municipality about six months ago, after realizing that no land zone permit had been granted for the new parking lot.
Simon Vanggaard of Dansk Folkeparti chairs the committee. As reported by DR, he said the timing of the case can seem somewhat comic, but that a cleanup is now underway, and that including this golf course may be sensible.
Second case in two weeks
The new case arrives shortly after a separate decision on Monday, September 7. The Ikast-Brande city council then pardoned Poulsen for a long list of conditions at Ikast Golf Klub. DR reported at the time that the council allowed nearly all of the 15 points raised in that case.
The mayor said after that meeting that the matter should now be politically closed, per DR. The Tullamore project has nonetheless placed a further case on the politicians’ table.
The Ikast Golf Club case involved protected nature that had been removed. That is not the situation at Tullamore, according to DR’s reporting. Aerial photographs cited by DR show the earlier parking area in 2017, construction of the new lot and an access road by 2019, and the old lot removed by 2025.
Michael Tophøj Sørensen, associate professor at the Department of Sustainability and Planning at Aalborg University, still questions the case. As stated by him to DR, it can become a democratic problem when neighbors and other parties are not given a chance to be heard.
He described a pattern in which work is carried out even though laws, rules and plans require permission first, with forgiveness requested afterward. Vanggaard told DR he does not see a breach with any major impact on the surroundings, and that he therefore thinks it should be allowed.
Asked whether the municipality is attentive enough to unauthorized construction, Vanggaard said the administration acts on a basis of trust. He added that he does not think the municipality should drive around checking whether permits are being respected.
The committee meeting on Wednesday will determine whether the local plan and the land zone permission proceed as recommended.
