'Ghost' golf course near Gleneagles up for sale

A Scottish golf resort located next to Gleneagles, which has been shrouded in secrecy, has been put up for sale.

The gWest course in Blackford, Perth and Kinross, was designed by architect David McLay Kidd and completed in 2009 - but never officially opened to the public. Very few people are thought to have played it.

It is currently owned by Mahdi al-Tajir, the owner of mineral water firm Highland Spring who was previously Scotland's richest man, and his family.

The 639-acre estate includes an 18-hole championship course and a clubhouse shell, as well as planning consent for up to 170 residential plots, a hotel and spa, leisure and entertainment facilities, and staff accommodation.

No guide price has been disclosed for gWest.

Former UAE ambassador al-Tajir owns the golf course, the surrounding 24,000-acre Blackford Estate and Highland Springs.

He made his money in oil but the golf course business was listed in three of his sons' names.

BBC Radio 4 podcast The Patch, which tells a local story from a randomly generated UK postcode, visited the village in 2020.

Presenter Polly Weston described the gWest development as a "ghost golf course - immaculately kept and completely deserted".

She said it stretched for hundreds of acres with the clubhouse on the horizon beyond the greens and bunkers. The clubhouse is a rectangular concrete structure topped with a dome of spiralled sheets of metal.

It is believed to have been completed for more than a decade - but it has never been played on.

The website for gWest advertises the estate as "Scotland's best kept secret".

Originally it was hoped the resort could compete with Gleneagles.

The golf course was just one aspect of plans which included luxury homes valued at as much as £3m and a seven-star hotel, according to local people who spoke to Weston.

But the global financial crisis, Scotland's independence referendum and Brexit have been cited for the lack of progress.

Euan Kelly, partner at Knight Frank Edinburgh who have been tasked with finding a buyer of the estate, said it was an "incredibly rare" opportunity.

He said: "We're expecting a huge amount of interest from across the globe in what could be a once-in-a-lifetime asset: a substantial consented resort development site, with a golf course designed by a celebrated architect, in one of Scotland's most prestigious leisure locations.

"While the bold ambitions for the site have yet to fully come to fruition, a sale could see them take an important step forward and add another destination to Scotland's, and Perthshire's, strong tourist offering."