Nick Faldo’s company is to design a new golf course at the Lavasa hill city near Pune in western India.

The 10,000 ha (25,000 acre) development, which straddles seven hills and is built along more than 60 kms of lakefront, will incorporate several residential and commercial initiatives, hotels and resort activities, as well as numerous centres of education and sporting excellence.

Lavasa is to be built according to the principles of the New Urbanism design movement, which seeks to create neighbourhoods that are economically and socially diverse, and walkable. Faldo Design will contribute an eighteen hole golf course. The company has been given a large and diverse site on which to route the course and detailed design work is planned to start later this year.

Faldo commented: “I’m very excited to be working on what promises to be an absolutely stunning project – a real benchmark for golf in India. This dramatically rolling site is topographically very interesting with large changes of elevation and an abundance of different flora and fauna. We’re still at the early conceptual stages, but we certainly plan to create a golfing journey that takes in all of the various elements and distinct features on offer. Part of the course routing will play towards the striking Lake Warasgaon and we’ll incorporate the many extraordinary backdrops and vistas that stretch all the way towards Mumbai. With areas characterised by rocky outcrops, rice paddies and gently cascading streams, there is so much to offer a course designer in terms of inspiration here and I’m sure that we’ll be able to make use of these features to great strategic and aesthetic effect.”

Ajit Gulabchand, chairman of the development company, Lavasa Corporation, said: “We are delighted to partner with Nick Faldo to create this golf course and to set up what we believe will be India's most sought after golf course academy in Lavasa.”