A REPORT into the privatisation of Basildon Golf Course has found councillors who gave up the lease were not given the full details of the deal.

Basildon Council was criticised by district auditor Debbie Hanson, of the Audit Commission, for the deal, made in 2005 with Basildon Golf Centre’s parent company, Jack Barker Limited.

It reveals councillors who agreed to lease the course to the firm were not told it planned to redevelop the course, with the controversial use of thousands of tonnes of building rubble.

Allowing more than 140,000 tonnes of spoil to be dumped on the course was central to the firm’s proposed £1million revamp, including a clubhouse and driving range, as it would be paid by builders to take their waste.

Basildon Council has now got the lease back, but the circumstances before it was given up were slammed by Ms Hanson.

She said a report to the cabinet in 2005 “did not clearly identify the preferred bidder’s proposed use of inert material to develop the golf course and the potential financial and environmental impact of this.”

Mrs Hanson also pinpointed failings in council decisions to supplement Basildon Golf Centre’s ailing finances during a three-year legal battle over the course redevelopment which ended with the Court of Appeal in 2010 ruling the authority acted unlawfully by granting planning permission for the scheme.

She said reports to support decisions to give the company about £140,000 of taxpayers’ money did not make “the full costs and benefits sufficiently clear”.

Despite the criticism, she found, overall, the financial arrangements had been sound.

The council has accepted the report and admitted it has to make improvements. Council leader Tony Ball said: “The report has indicated we need to make improvements.

“We fully acknowledge this, which is why we recently put in place a temporary, one-year arrangement to manage the facility, giving us the time to decide how best use can be made of it in the interest of our local area.”

The report said the council has already carried out a review of its procurement processes, particularly when concerning environmental issues, and a full review of its decision making process to see how lessons can be learnt.

The council’s court costs from losing its Court of Appeal battle are still being finalised, but could run into hundreds of thousands.