A BASINGSTOKE venue which is hosting Christmas party nights has been given a one for its food hygiene.

Sherfield Oaks Golf Club, in Wildmoor Lane, Sherfield-on-Loddon, was visited by a food hygiene inspector on July 18 who rated it as one out of five for its hygiene standards.

The golf club, which is hosting Casino Royale themed Christmas party nights with a buffet, was told that ‘major improvement’ is necessary for its management of food safety.

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This includes having systems or checks in place to ensure that food sold or served is safe to eat; evidence that staff know about food safety; and confidence that standards will be maintained in the future.

It was also told that hygienic food handling needs improvement, which includes preparation, cooking, re-heating, cooling and storage.

The cleanliness and condition of the facilities and building were found by the inspector to be ‘generally satisfactory’.

The club is run by Get Golfing - a charity set up in 2018 to support struggling English golf facilities and stem the flow of course and club closures. 

It owns and operates under long leases 11 sites with 6,000 members and more than 130,000 unique visitors each year, with its surpluses re-invested back into its venues, staff careers and community objectives. 

A spokesperson for Sherfield Oaks Golf Club, which caters for private parties, meetings and wakes, said: "As a charity that focused on increasing participation, investing into our local communities and growing and developing our staff we are extremely disappointed with the recent score.

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"Working with our local communities has enabled us to deliver amazing projects such as our junior pro ams and free school meal programme which offers children a safe engaging space, hot food and coaching to help them achieve and improve.

"We are working closely with the EHO (environmental health officer) to ensure our paperwork meets and beats the requirements moving forward. We are confident that we will achieve the maximum score available upon our follow-up visit.’’