Great Leighs is closed after losing its licence

Paul Fielder13 April 2012

Britain's newest racecourse at Great Leighs has been closed after the British Horseracing Authority revoked its licence to race.

The track, just north of Chelmsford in Essex, held an evening meeting yesterday under a temporary licence which ran out at midnight last night, but the BHA have refused to issue another temporary licence for reasons that are unclear.

John Holmes, the owner of the course, said: "We successfully ran four fixtures this month under a temporary licence but the process has taken longer than we hoped.

"We applied for an extension to cover the next two fixtures [22 and 29 January] but were told we had not supplied enough information. Because of the timing for entries, we have lost next Thursday's fixture.

"We are back at the BHA on Monday with a view to resuming racing from 29 January."

Holmes appeared at a BHA regulatory committee hearing yesterday where his company, Essex County Showground Group Ltd, were applying for a further temporary licence.

But a BHA statement this morning said: "The committee declined to grant a further temporary licence. The effect is that, unless and until a new application is made, and is successful, there is no licence in place for racing at Great Leighs."

Next Thursday's all-weather meeting at Great Leighs is now expected to be transferred to Kempton Park with Holmes telling the BBC Sport website today that the track was undergoing "a restructuring process".

While the BHA have not made public their reasons, rumours of unpaid bills and unfinished construction work are thought to be behind the decision.

Great Leighs, Britain's first new racecourse since 1927, was dogged from the start by delays and eventually opened to a chorus of disapproval 18 months late in April last year at a cost of £30million.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in