Golf club members are staging a final desperate bid to save their course from disappearing to make way for a 2,500-house development.

Ifield Golf Course and Country Club, in Rusper Road between Crawley and Horsham, is under threat of closure.

Under John Prescott's South-East housing strategy, West Sussex County Council must find somewhere for the housing in the Crawley and Horsham area.

The golf club is one of the prime sites chosen as a likely place for development.

But golfers say hundreds of acres of natural beauty and wildlife would be destroyed along with the resting place of many people whose ashes are scattered there.

Club captain Ron Adams said the other option being considered, a landfill site in the narrowest bit of land between Crawley and Horsham near the A264, was more suitable.

He said: "There is no ecological impact like here because it is a landfill site with little or no ecological merit.

"It takes three or four years for a golf course to mature properly. We have raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity at Ifield. It is an established part of the community and a magnificent asset.

"We hope to provide enough opposition to the extent that Horsham District Council and West Sussex County Council do not carry out the destruction."

Paul Rowley, head of strategic and community planning at Horsham District Council, said the decision had been made by central government and West Sussex County Council in 2002 and it was now down to them to implement it.

He said: "There are problems with developing the landfill site to do with stability and access from the A264. It would also narrow the gap further between Horsham and Crawley.

"We understand the concerns of club members and residents but we have to balance that with requirements we are obliged to meet."

He said other sites being considered had drawbacks such as the possibility of a second runway at Gatwick.

Ifield Golf Club Ltd has owned the club since it opened in the Twenties.

Chairman Neil Smith said Horsham Council had offered it alternative land, which is on a floodplain and cannot be used for residential development because of the noise should a new runway at Gatwick go ahead.

He said building a course on the floodplain would be very expensive.