Homes or Golf?

The case for building on some of London's 95 golf courses

In the run up to London’s Mayoral Election on May 2nd, we’re sharing sections from Get London Building, Britain Remade’s plan to tackle London’s housing shortage. In the first post in this series, we tackled the issue of density, calling for a New Zealand style upzoning of London’s brownfield land near train stations to cut emissions and rents. In this post, we ask should all development really be banned on London’s 95 golf courses?

If all of London’s golf courses were a borough, they would be its 15th largest – roughly the size of Brent. Can we really justify forcing so much land to be used for golf when almost half of London renters are struggling to make monthly payments?

London’s 95 golf courses (excluding driving ranges and courses with fewer than 9 holes) take almost as much land as all other sporting activities combined. There are also a further 74 golf courses just outside London too. More of London is dedicated to golf than to football, despite the fact that many times more Londoners play football than play golf on a regular basis. 

A large proportion of London’s golf courses are publicly-owned. In fact, if London’s publicly owned golf courses were a borough, they would be larger than Hammersmith and Fulham. Yet councils get little in return as they lease them to golf clubs on the cheap. For instance, one golf course pays just £13,500 in rent to Enfield council for 39 hectares. That’s £3,000 less than it costs to rent a one bed flat in Enfield.

Some golf courses are on the edge of London and are surrounded by nature – making them inappropriate for development – but more than 1,420 hectares of golf courses (including 565 hectares of publicly owned golf courses) are within walking distance of train or stations, busy bus routes, and town centres. Building on just half of these sites at terraced house densities would deliver more than 30,000 homes, while allowing the rest to be turned into genuinely open spaces for Londoners to enjoy nature, walk their dogs, and exercise.

Development on golf courses is typically restricted due to two designations, Green Belt and Metropolitan Open Land. Yet while golf courses are green spaces, unlike parks they are only open to a small number of people at any time. In fact, architect Russell Curtis calculates that London’s parks on an average day see around 83 times as many visitors than a similarly sized golf course operating at full capacity. Nor are golf courses havens for biodiversity – fairways and greens are deliberate monocultures. 

It is possible to build new homes and create new nature-rich green open spaces for locals when developing on golf courses. One proposal from the RCKa architectural practice shows how re-developing half of a publicly owned golf course in Enfield could unlock 650 new mid-rise homes while creating new biodiverse wetlands, cycle routes, and allotments.

So what should be done?

The Mayor should update the London Plan to allow developments on the capital’s golf courses and remove Green Belt and Metropolitan Open Land designation, if they meet the following conditions:

• they are within walking distance of a tube or train station within regular services into central london;

• the proposed redevelopment meets a 25% net gain in biodiversity;

• new homes meet the highest standards of energy efficiency include on-site energy generation where possible;

• an increase in genuinely public outdoor space and sporting facilities.

London needs more homes built in well-connected areas, yet development is restricted on industrial land near tube stations and the capital dedicates a borough the size of Brent to golf. There’s a better way.