A GOLF club battling to stave off liquidation and closure was given five years to pay off its debts.

The £7m North West National, in Rainford, was forced to put together a rescue plan because of a series of setbacks after its first phase opened in 2009.

The club has now been granted a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) which will allow it to carry on operating while paying off some of its creditors.

Club bosses sought the CVA after racking up debts of £400,000. Under the terms of the five-year scheme, the club will now only have to pay back £144,000.

The deal was approved at a meeting of creditors, even though they stand to get back only 33p out of every £1 they put in.

Some were still unhappy about the CVA being granted and hoped to see new management brought in.

One of those was Steve Ward, who said: “It means the present management has walked away from it and are still pulling the strings. We wanted new owners to be brought in and for the club to be run correctly.”

The North West National was described as the UK’s first “golf village” when it opened.

But it soon ran into trouble because of the current economic climate, as well as being hampered by poor weather.

The former director of golf at the club, New Zealand-born Glenn Turner, who was instrumental in setting up the course, also stepped down at the beginning of April.

His job involved bringing in new members and corporate clients and developing the course to a championship-length layout, along with the establishment of a golf school with a team of coaches at the driving range.

Turner, a well-known TV and radio golf commentator and world record holder for the number of courses played in one year, claimed he made a personal loan to the company – which has not been fully repaid.

The course was built partly on the old Pilkington glassworks and former agricultural land, making it one of the longest in the region.

It included an 18-hole championship-length course, new clubhouse, driving range and nine-hole academy course.

The driving range and nine-hole course have opened, but the main course has remained shut.

The course was launched by Glenn Turner in partnership with businessman Martin Turner (no relation), who remains in charge of the golf driving range.

A CVA is the business equivalent of a Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA), designed for people with unmanageable debts to avoid bankruptcy.

The idea of a CVA is to pay off most, if not all, debts over an agreed period of time out of future profits as an alternative to going into administration or liquidation.

No-one from the club was available for comment.