New adventure golf and aerial assault course in Corby has VIP grand opening

The new Iron Pitt Woods Adventure in Corby has opened just in time for the school holidays.

The new 18-hole adventure golf and aerial assault course with zip wire opened to the public last weekend (15 July).

This was followed by a corporate opening yesterday (Wednesday) attended by representatives from the community as well as local politicians. They were greeted to a rolled out red carpet, free refreshments and classical Spanish guitar from artist Elio Andrade.

Jamie Jackson, woodland manager for Holiday Inn Corby/Kettering A43, said: “We’ve been asked to do something with it [the woodland] for the past however many years.

“We got this concept, we searched high and low for ideas. Martin the general manager, he went to 17, 18, 19 different sites across the UK, felt that this was a good piece of business to get involved with and we thought we’d give it a go.”

If the venture is successful, the team at the Holiday Inn plan to expand, potentially getting rock climbing walls, axe throwing and off-road buggies.

Jamie said: “We’re opening up in a key part of the summer, the start of the summer holiday and the plan is to make that summer holidays a success.

“Then we can sit down after that, we can manage our footfall, we can look at our forecast budgets, see how we’ve performed, see how the site has performed against our forecasting budget and again if it is a success then that gives us every opportunity and every right to expand and look at bigger options of the future.”

Mayor of Corby, Cllr Leanne Buckingham, cut the ribbon at the opening event yesterday.

Cllr Buckingham said: “I don’t think we’ve had this kind of investment in an activity that’s based around family and social life, so this is really quite good.

“I think we need more varied options. When I’ve done things in the past with young people I’ve specifically asked ‘what do you use’ and ‘what do you want to see more of’ and there’s a couple of gaps.

“We’ve got a couple of gaps in people knowing about clubs, we’ve got huge gaps in the corporate market, where young people are happy to go and spend a bit of money to enjoy their time but it’s not available to them.”

Specialist contractors Greenspan Projects have been transforming the woodland, removing ‘unsuitable for retention’ and ‘low quality’ trees to make way for the park.

As well as being open to the public, hotel guests will be able to use the facility for weddings and corporate events. A new reception area has been created to welcome visitors and it will sell refreshments as well as hosting birthday parties.

With permission to open during sunlight hours, those aged 13 and above will pay £8.95 for a round of golf (£6.95 for five to 12-year-olds) and the high ropes with zip-wire will cost £16.95.

Those who are 120cm to 130cm tall will need to be accompanied by a taller participant on the high ropes. Two circuits of which are expected to take approximately 60 to 90 minutes.