For June Stewart, Hounslow Heath Golf Centre and its surrounds are a place of refuge from busy city life.

The former landlady says she grew up in Feltham beside the heath, where her grandfather used to go scrumping, and the trees around the fairways are still a popular spot with fruit pickers.

All that would be lost, she fears, if plans to replace the 120 acre public golf course with a children's adventure park , high ropes trail, driving range and pitch and putt course get the go-ahead.

"It's such a gem and we will never get it back. You can walk through it and forget you're in a noisy city. It's like being in the middle of the countryside," she says.

"I don't have anything against the developers. The council should never have leased the land in the first place.

"I think the golf course was originally put there to raise money to improve the greenery. This is a nature reserve with a golf course on it. Not the other way round.

"This land is an important part of life for the many people using it"

"The land has been available for public use for many years and it's an important part of life for the many people using it for recreation."

Kidspace Adventure Holdings, which runs Hobbledown children's adventure park and farm in Epsom, was granted a 125-year lease by Hounslow Council earlier this year.

It has applied to build a similar attraction there called Hobblers Heath, beside a driving range and pitch and putt course.

There is still some confusion as to the status of the land and the extent of public access at present.

Ms Stewart and fellow campaigners claim they have been told by the club they are free to roam, provided they don't impede play.

But the owners of Kidspace say the only public right of way is that providing access to the heathland on the other side , and anyone straying from this path is effectively trespassing.

Whatever the truth legally, it would appear there are more walkers using the land than golfers at present.

When I joined Ms Stewart and fellow campaigner Britta Goodman for a brief tour this month, we encountered three dog walkers and not one golfer.

Rob Gray, of the environmental group FORCE (Friends of the River Crane Environment), which also opposes the plans as they stand, said when he played a round of golf there recently he saw about a dozen walkers and no fellow players.

Popular spot for walkers

Just looking at the well-trodden paths between the shrubbery and trees, away from the route golfers would take, is enough to show it is a popular spot for walkers.

According to Hounslow Council, the golf course, which was previously used as a gravel pit and then for landfill, is not technically part of the heath. It is, however, designated as metropolitan green belt land and part of it is a nature reserve.

Ms Stewart takes issue with the council's claims, however. She says its own Green Belt Management Plan published back in 1992 refers to the golf course being on the heath.

She also shows me a walking guide published in the council magazine Hounslow Matters earlier this year, in which the golf course is included in a map of the heath.

When it was advertised for sale last year, the brochure also described the whole of Hounslow Heath, including the golf course, as a local nature reserve.

Advertised as a nature reserve

Kidspace says the adventure park, like Hobbledown, would be low impact, with trees retained and new ones likely to be planted, and most structures hand built from wood.

But opponents point out some 120 mature trees would be lost to make way for the driving range and there would also be an indoor soft play area.

Although there are no mechanical rides and according to Kidspace no plans for any, Ms Stewart says that was true of Thorpe Park when it opened in the late 70s.

Kidspace is funded by the adventure capital firm Downing, and Ms Stewart believes investors wanting a bigger return on their money could push for bigger rides or for the land to eventually be sold for housing.

Kidspace says it has no plans to go anywhere once it opens the new attraction and would happily agree to conditions prohibiting the sale of the lease or the introduction of mechanical rides.

Ms Stewart says the heath was originally handed to the public by King Henry VIII, who used to hunt there, and that it once stretched for thousands of acres, possibly as far as Croydon.

"Give it 10 years and houses will be built"

If the adventure park is fenced off, she says, it would be the first step to the land eventually being paved over.

"If this gets the go ahead I reckon give it 10 years and there will be houses built on that land," she says.

Even without mechanical rides, she feels the high ropes trail at the edge of the golf course, between the two channels of the River Crane, would destroy the tranquility of the neighbouring Brazil Mill Woods nature reserve.

FORCE also opposes the use of this land for the high ropes trail.

It has put forward alternative proposals, which would see the land between the waterways untouched and a new footway and cycle path created, utilising an existing tunnel underneath Staines Road, to improve public access.

The Save Hounslow Heath Facebook page has more than 350 likes, and London Assembly Green Party member Darren Johnson is among those opposing the plans . The founders of The Tropical Zoo in Feltham have also voiced concerns about the impact on them.

But the Friends of Hounslow Heath group has not expressed any objection and compared with other developments of this scale in the area the scheme has attracted relatively little opposition.

"What will happen to memorial stones?"

In an entirely non-scientific survey, I knocked on a few doors along Sparrow Farm Drive, where Ms Stewart lives, to garner her neighbours' opinions.

Of the six people I spoke to only one claimed to use the heath regularly. Two said they had no strong feelings about the adventure park plans and four said they broadly supported them as it would mean more for their children or grandchildren to do in the area.

Ms Stewart believes there would be a bigger backlash if more people knew about the site and the plans, which she feels have been poorly publicised.

"A lot of people don't know what they would be losing. I think this area would be much better used if the council did more to promote it," she said.

"There was no public consultation carried out before the lease was granted, and there have been no surveys of how many walkers use the land.

"They claim it's for the community but a lot of people round here won't be able to afford to go there."

During our short stroll around the golf course, Ms Stewart also shows me a memorial stone to a young man who the inscription says used to play there. Beside it is a basket of flowers which appears to have been left recently.

She said she knows of at least one more such memorial and has been told there are others.

"These stones must mean a lot to the families who put them there. What will happen to them if the development goes ahead?" she asks.