DEVELOPER Noel Shuttleworth, who has 30 years' experience in the conversion of old properties, is asking if the golf hotel scheme proposed for Tottenham House in Savernake Forest is necessary to guarantee the future of the Grade 1 listed building.

Mr Shuttleworth, one of the founders of the English Courtyard Association, has questioned whether the £70million scheme is the only way of restoring and preserving Tottenham House.

He wonders if any bid has been made to market the property, which is said to need £20 million spending on it, as a house or for conversion into apartments.

Mr Shuttleworth, who lives in Savernake Forest, said he would not be directly affected by the scheme to turn the 200-year-old mansion into a five star hotel and international class golf centre.

Plans for Tottenham House, the traditional family seat of the Marquis of Ailesbury, were unveiled last week. They revealed a scheme to build 130 luxury guest suites and in indoor swimming pool in the former stable block and kitchen garden with a further 18 suites in the main house.

Golf commentator Peter Alliss is designing the golf course to go on farmland behind Tottenham House, which was built for the 1st Marquis of Ailesbury.

It has not been used by the family since the Second World War and was leased to a prep school and latterly the Amber Foundation as a rehabilitation centre.

Mr Shuttleworth said he had no strong feelings for or against the golf hotel scheme but asked if it was the only way to save the building, which is on the English Heritage register of buildings at risk.

He believes the plans should be the subject of a public inquiry to establish if the golf hotel project was the only way to save Tottenham House.

Mr Shuttleworth said a number of local people had asked him to express their concerns over the size of the scheme and its effect, particularly on traffic.

Plans showed three car parks with 380 car spaces, said Mr Shuttleworth, and two movements per day per space would generate 760 vehicle movements onto the Durley-Bedwyn road, which he described as dangerous.

"We are led to believe that the Peter Alliss-designed golf course is intended for championship golf. On championship days traffic would cause total gridlock."

Mr Shuttleworth, whose own schemes include converting the former workhouse in Marlborough into up market retirement homes, asked: "Do we really need a large luxury hotel, a conference centre, a helicopter pad, health club and golf course in the middle of one of the most beautiful, peaceful and historic areas of Wiltshire?

"One wonders if it is a price worth paying for the preservation of a house which is near enough to both London and to Heathrow, that despite its condition could be sold with reasonable ease."