{"id":48,"date":"2020-07-14T11:45:48","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T10:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/defective.info\/?page_id=48"},"modified":"2023-11-11T17:35:09","modified_gmt":"2023-11-11T17:35:09","slug":"the-golf-belt","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/golfbelt.russellcurtis.co.uk\/","title":{"rendered":"The Golf Belt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Britain has a lot of golf courses: over a quarter of Europe’s courses<\/a> are located within the United Kingdom. That’s two-and-a-half times that of the next most numerous country: 1,800 compared to Germany’s 731 – or one course for every 37,000 people, with each German course serving 113,500.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine a typical golf course and your mind might conjure up images of rolling, emerald fairways of the home counties or rugged, windswept heathlands of the Scottish coast. Yet it might be surprising to learn that, despite London taking up around 0.65% of the UK’s total area, over 1 in 20 of the country’s golf courses lie within it. There are no fewer than 94 active golf courses<\/a> (excluding driving ranges and courses with fewer than 9 holes) located within the Greater London area, together covering an area of 4,331 hectares. 21 of London’s boroughs have at least one course; some, such as Enfield, have seven.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stockley Park Golf Club, by Andrew Bowden (via Flickr)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For regular players, golf represents an opportunity to spend time outside with friends and colleagues, taking in the fresh air and exercise. Yet given the capital’s myriad constraints on development, it’s surely a stretch to claim that a leisure activity enjoyed by around 1% of the national population (a figure which is likely far less when only the population of London is taken into account) requires such huge tracts of land within a city which is in such dire need of homes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below I have set out how I believe that limited, sensitive, development of a small proportion of London’s golf courses could make a significant impact on meeting the city’s housing need as well enhancing biodiversity and opening up vital green space for the benefit of all Londoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The London Borough of Golf<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The area of Greater London given over to golf courses is vast. If golf courses were a London Borough in their own right, it would be the 15th largest<\/a>; bigger than Brent (total population: 330,800<\/a>), and slightly smaller than Sutton. Even discounting privately-owned courses from the measurement, the 43 publicly-owned golf courses in London take up just under 1,600 hectares of land in Greater London. That\u2019s still more than the entire area of Hammersmith & Fulham, which has a population of 185,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Map
A map of London showing the distribution of golf courses, their ownership structures, and their areas relative to that of the borough of Brent.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On average across London, a single hole occupies an area of just over 2.5 hectares (to arrive at this figure I’ve divided the total area of London’s golf couses by the number of holes the provide). That means the average 18 hole course in London has a total area of approximately 46 hectares. It’s difficult to overstate how large this is. To give a sense of scale, the following image shows the outline of Wembley Stadium overlaid on a map of Enfield Golf Course. It fits comfortably within it, taking up the area of just two holes. Wembley Stadium seats 90,000 people<\/a>. The Excel centre – one of London’s largest buildings – fits comfortably inside it too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wembley Stadium overlaid on Enfield Golf Course. The entire stadium – which can seat 90,000 people – takes up the area of just two holes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Those living on the fringes of London aren’t limited to playing only on courses within its boundaries, however. There are a further 74 golf courses with an area exceeding 10 hectares within just 5km of London’s boundary, as the following diagram shows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Those living on the edges of London are spoilt for choice when it comes to where to play. There are 74 further golf courses within just 5km of London’s boundary. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Who owns London’s Golf Courses?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

43 of London’s golf courses are within public ownership<\/a>, mostly by the London Boroughs themselves. Others are owned by public bodies including the Church of England through the Church Commissioners (perhaps the recent “Coming Home<\/a>” report by the Archbishops\u2019 Commission on Housing, Church and Community might stimulate some discussions as to whether its 30 hectares of land<\/a> in Barnet might be put to better use?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In most cases the freehold is owned by the council and leased to the golf clubs which occupy them; a handful are operated as municipal courses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there are the anomolies: Arkley Golf Club<\/a> (freehold owned by London Borough of Barnet) has recently been acquired by developer U+I<\/a> having bought the lease from the club for \u00a3300,000 (roughly \u00a314,000 per hectare). Whilst claiming that this would “secure” the future of the club, Matthew Weiner of U+I was careful to point out that such acquisitions “have the potential for longer-term value creation”. Arkley Gold Club lies entirely within the green belt, however with the new London Plan loosening restrictions on the protection of green belt, perhaps this is a canny move given the average property prices in this part of Barnet currently exceed \u00a31m.<\/a> In it’s draft Local Plan, Enfield Council is already proposing the selective release of some of its green belt<\/a> to meet housing need which has, inevitably, raised the hackles of locals<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But perhaps these courses are a good source of income for cash-strapped councils? Seemingly not. Enfield Golf Club, to take one example, pays an annual sum of \u00a313,500<\/a> to the council for the privilege of renting its 39 hectare golf course in the west of the Borough. That’s slightly less than it costs to rent a two-bedroom flat in the same area for a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The remaining courses are owned by various public and private bodies: pension funds, the clubs themselves. The City of London Corporation holds the freehold to two (one in Redbridge and another in Waltham Forest, totalling over 90 hectares of land) and the Crown a further five (three of which are in Richmond-upon-Thames).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Types of Green Space<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

According to the Ordnance Survey’s Open Green Space dataset<\/a>, there is 23,684 hectares of accessible green space within London’s boundary. This falls into a range of categories, including Allotments and Community Growing Space, Cemeteries and Public Parks & Gardens. Only three distinct leisure activities warrant their own category: bowling greens (36ha), tennis courts (65ha) and golf courses (4,331ha). Football pitches are commonly used for other uses too, so these are consolidated into a “playing field” category, taking up 2,948ha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The total area of green space dedicated to sports and leisure in London is roughly equivalent to that of public parks and gardens (although, of course, some parks are often used for sports and games too, as a summer evening visit to Regent’s Park will testify).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the 9,950ha or so of land set aside for sport and leisure activities alone, 43.5% of this is dedicated to golf. Golf takes up 17% of all of the available green space in London.<\/p>\n\n\n