RICS Archives - Curtography

Lockdown seems a long time ago. It’s now been six years since Boris Johnson announced that the UK was descending into its first lockdown and everyone in the nation scuttled home (if they were lucky enough to have one). Thus commenced the ritual of social distancing, home working and slathering ourselves in hand sanitiser.

The pandemic reshaped the housing market. Houses spiked in value as those who could afford to fled from flats in the cities for a new life in the provinces and – even though many regretted this decision and decided the rural life wasn’t for them – the price of flats in London hasn’t kept pace with that of houses. This isn’t just a preference for homes with bigger gardens, but a consequence of the cladding scandal, mortgageability and growing scepticism about leasehold property.

While the price of flats has fallen, there’s one appalling statistic that has been inexorably heading in the other direction: the financial cost of homelessness has rocketed and, half a decade after the pandemic, there’s little sign of improvement. The financial cost is scandalous; the human impact is a tragedy.

We might be short of homes, but one thing we’re not short of is land. There is developable land across the capital – land that does not demand expensive remediation and is close to high streets.

Land that is owned by the very councils that are slowly being bankrupted by the insidious rise of homelessness. Land that is sparsely used, save for bashing small white balls about. There is land in abundance.

Golf courses are a huge land resource in London’s suburban boroughs

Of all the suburban boroughs, Enfield faces the greatest challenge, recording 400 households presenting as homeless every month. It has more than 3,000 families in temporary accommodation, costing taxpayers around £80m per year.

At the same time, the council owns three golf courses, with two more in private ownership and a sixth under the control of the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority. Together, the borough’s courses occupy more than 330ha – around 4% of its total area.

This is a common pattern across London, particularly in the outer areas, where fingers of green belt push their way into the suburbs between radial rail and tube lines. Enfield’s neighbouring Barnet has nine courses and Bromley, in the south-east of London, 11.

Although Richmond upon Thames has only seven, they’re huge and together take up 7% of the borough’s area – the largest proportion of any in London. Southwark’s Dulwich and Sydenham Hill Golf Club, owned by the Dulwich Estate and located in the borough’s southern tip, is the closest to central London and extends to more than 33ha.

In total, there are more than 90 active golf clubs in Greater London. Cumulatively they occupy an area greater than Brent – a mid-sized borough home to 330,000 people. London’s publicly-owned courses alone – of which there are more than 40 – take up an area larger than the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which has a total population of 185,000.

When the city is under such pressure to provide homes for a growing population, and with house prices continuing to spiral upwards, it is only right to question whether golf represents a just use of a scarce resource.

Attitudes to development of green belt and metropolitan open land are changing

Of course, wholesale redevelopment of Enfield’s – or any borough’s – fairways and putting greens is not realistic, nor reasonable.

Irrespective of the political challenges, the planning constraints are considerable. Most golf courses sit in either green belt or metropolitan open land (MOL), with the latter being a planning designation unique to London that affords the same protections as green belt. Or at least it did; plans are afoot.

In the mayor of London’s Towards a New London Plan (the London Plan), published in May 2025, there is a noticeable shift in position when it comes to green space, and golf courses in particular. As the area required for a single golfer to enjoy a round could provide homes for approximately 380 people the document acknowledged that, ‘given the challenging housing target, there may be some very specific circumstances where certain MOL, such as golf courses, could be considered for release for housing.

‘These are often not publicly accessible and offer limited biodiversity value. They could also provide new accessible open spaces and parks alongside housing and other development.’
Towards a New London Plan, Mayor of London, May 2025

Some golf clubs are now investigating ways to release land for other uses that might provide much-needed income to invest in tired facilities. However, they come up against the very planning barriers imposed to protect them from unwanted development.

Concern over biodiversity loss causing pushback against development

Even when development is necessary for a club’s survival, the mere suggestion of building on surplus green space is met with resistance.

The argument is twofold: golf courses provide vital open space accessible to Londoners, and they contribute to the city’s ecology. But the latter is a fallacy. High water usage and the frequent mowing of a largely monocultural landscape do not provide significant biodiversity benefits, as many claim.

As with motorways, trees and hedges along the edges of fairways attract wildlife. But that doesn’t make them inherently biodiverse; for highways and fairways, nature is a by-product, not an objective.

An average-sized suburban golf course might have around 20% of its area occupied by either fairways or green, with a further 50% occupied by rough and 30% by tree cover. That’s not an insignificant amount, but rewilding and opening these spaces to the public, as Lewisham Council did in 2019 at Beckenham Place Park, could offer significant ecological benefits to the wider area.

A third of London’s area is considered to be green. Parks and gardens occupy around 11,500ha of land in London and playing fields and sports grounds around 5,600ha. That compares well with other global cities.

Golf courses are the third largest category of open space, occupying more than 4,330ha. But with each golfer requiring more than 1ha to play, the capacity of the city’s courses to deal with a wider societal need is significantly limited.

Creative town planning overcomes barriers to development in open spaces

Although it is often presented as a binary choice between fields or concrete, development in open spaces does not have to be a zero-sum game. There is no reason why, with a little creativity and imagination, we cannot find ways to improve public access, promote biodiversity and provide vital new – or even enhance current – social infrastructure, parkland, food production, leisure spaces and housing, while at the same time respecting the important contribution that open spaces make to the character of suburban London.

Clusters of high-density housing set in biodiverse landscapes and linked to the wider public transport network by cycle routes would be entirely compatible with the broader policy aims of the London Plan, if carried out in an intelligent way. Policy must evolve to allow this to happen.

This town structure could also be achieved without a net loss of golfing capacity. The intelligent consolidation of a single course could shorten some higher-par holes without reducing their total number, releasing much-needed land for other uses and improving the experience for time-poor players.

More than 1,400ha of London’s golf courses – exactly one- third – lie in easy reach of public transport or close to high streets and are therefore considered to be accessible and suitable for incremental intensification. The areas of public courses that meet these criteria could provide homes for 140,000 people and London’s golfers would still have 1,500 holes to play.

In fact, most of London’s courses lie within the outer edges of the city, and there are a further 74 courses no more than 5km over the border into the Home Counties. Golfers are not, and will not be, deprived of choice when it comes to places to play.

Challenges are multifaceted, but development projects are underway

The challenges facing London are myriad, and no single intervention will solve the current housing crisis once and for all. But failing to house those who need a decent place to live is not a result of factors outside our control – it is a choice. Access to decent housing is one of the most significant contributors to social and economic inequality.

At last, politicians seem willing to face this challenge head on and there are examples of golf course development in the city.

Barking and Dagenham Council recently approved the sale of Crowlands Heath golf course to be developed for housing.

Deputy Mayor Jules Pipe allowed proposals for the All England Club to expand into Wimbledon Park Golf Club, opening up more space for public access.

Back in Enfield, its Crews Hill course sits in the middle of the government’s favoured location for a new town.

One by one, golfing holes are making way for homes.

This article first appeared in RICS Land Journal on 4 June 2026, and is an update to an earlier article published by RICS on 28 May 2022.

The summer lockdown of 2020 in England allowed some of us who were working from home to explore parts of our neighbourhoods where we had not previously ventured. I took the opportunity to poke around bits of north London close to where I live.

Most days my walks took me from familiar Victorian terraced streets into the green fringes of Barnet. Reaching the edge of the built-up area, my route took me along a path that plunged into the dense, ancient woodland of Monken Hadley Common.

This comprises part of the London Outer Orbital Path (LOOP) linking Cockfosters at the end of the Piccadilly Line to Chipping Barnet a few kilometres to the west. In the heart of the woodland lies Jack’s Lake, a popular spot for fishing and picnicking.

On a map, the common’s straight northern edge marks a clear boundary between the London Boroughs of Enfield and Barnet; a buffer of green belt separating the wealthy community of Hadley Wood – home to footballers, pop stars and bankers – and the working-class neighbourhood of New Barnet immediately to the south.

The dividing line is not just administrative or economic. Visitors to the common unfamiliar with the well-trodden paths through the trees find their route blocked by a battered sign nailed to a tree warning:

With club membership capped at 500 and fees of more than £2,000 per year, the course is an extraordinarily exclusive use of land. Yet is it far from unique. It is only one of seven courses in use in Enfield, and its proximity to the borough’s boundary with Barnet places it ten minutes’ drive from half a dozen more.

Enfield’s courses together take up an astonishing 330ha, around 4% of the borough’s total area. Two – Hadley Wood and Bush Hill Park – are privately owned, and yet the freeholds to the five other courses are under public control.

One, on the far eastern flank of the borough, is owned by the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority. The other four belong to Enfield Council, totalling 180ha. Coincidentally, this is almost precisely the same area of green belt that the borough is currently – and controversially – proposing to remove from its green belt in its draft local plan.

This is a common pattern across London – particularly in the outer boroughs where fingers of green belt push their way towards the centre between radial rail and tube lines. Nearby Barnet has nine courses; Bromley in the south east of London has 11. Although Richmond upon Thames has only seven courses, together they take up 7% of the borough’s area, the largest proportion of any in London. Southwark’s Dulwich & Sydenham Hill Golf Club is the closest to central London, owned by the Dulwich Estate, and extends to more than 33ha in the borough’s southern tip.

At the time of writing there are 94 golf courses in use in Greater London. Cumulatively they occupy an area greater than the whole of Brent, which is home to 330,000 people. London’s publicly owned courses alone – of which there are 43 – take up an area larger than the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, with a total population of 185,000.

Map shows London Borough of Brent that covers 4,325ha, compared to total area of all London golf courses covering 4,331ha and total area of all publicly owned London golf courses covering 1,596ha.

Courses represent inequitable land use

When the city is under such pressure to provide homes for a growing population and with house prices continuing to spiral upwards, it is only right to question whether golf represents a just use of a scarce resource.

In Enfield, where there are six golf courses in the affluent western half of the borough, there are some 10,500 people living in temporary accommodation and 4,500 households on the council waiting list. Everyone in dire need of housing in Enfield could be provided within a home by developing just two of the council’s own courses at modest densities.

Of course, wholesale redevelopment of Enfield’s – or any borough’s – fairways and putting greens is not realistic. Irrespective of the political challenges, the planning constraints are considerable. Most golf courses sit either in green belt or metropolitan open land, the latter being a planning designation unique to London that affords the same protections as green belt.

If two of the council’s golf courses were redeveloped, 10,500 people in temporary accommodation and 4,500 households on the council waiting list could be rehomed.

But surely it’s right to question whether a game enjoyed by a small proportion of the population – around 1%, and likely far less in a relatively youthful city such as London, should occupy such a huge amount of valuable land.

It’s true that golf has had a modest resurgence during the pandemic, but this is likely a temporary blip in a long-term decline. Despite this – and with clear evidence that many golf clubs are struggling to survive – the idea that we might take a more nuanced approach to the city’s green spaces is usually met with outrage.

Others are investigating ways to release land for other uses that might provide much-needed income to invest in tired facilities, but they come up against the very planning barriers imposed to protect them from unwanted development. Even when development is necessary for a club’s survival, the mere suggestion of building on surplus green space is met with opprobrium.

Rebuffing green space arguments

The argument reinforced by planning policy is that golf courses provide vital open space accessible to Londoners and they contribute to the city’s ecology. But this is a fallacy. High water usage and frequent mowing of a largely monocultural landscape do not, as many claim, provide significant biodiversity benefits. While trees and hedges along the edges of fairways attract wildlife, the same argument could be made about motorways – and no one is promoting those as a means to green the city.

An average-sized suburban golf course might have around one-fifth of its area occupied by either fairways or green, half by rough, and 30% by tree cover. That’s not an insignificant amount; but rewilding and opening these spaces to the public, as Lewisham Council did in 2019 at Beckenham Place Park, could offer significant ecological benefits to the wider area.

It’s become clear during the pandemic, if evidence were needed, that open space has an important part to play in enhancing mental and physical well-being. Before the introduction of housing space standards there was nothing to stop developers building flats without external private amenity space, and millions of homes were built lacking such provision.

Fortunately, parks and gardens occupy around 11,500ha of land in London, and playing fields and sports grounds 5,600ha. That compares well with other global cities, and a third of London’s area considered to be green.

Golf courses are the third largest category of open space, though, occupying more than 4,330ha. With each golfer requiring around 1.6ha to play, this significantly limits the capacity of the city’s courses to deal with a wider societal need.

Indeed, one of the definitions of metropolitan open land as set out in the London Plan is that it must ‘serve either the whole or significant parts of London’ – a difficult argument to make when the density of use is so limited and the barriers to entry so high. The area required for a single golfer to enjoy a round could provide homes for approximately 380 people. So is it time to start replacing golf courses with housing?

The area required for a single golfer to enjoy a round could provide homes for around 380 people. So is it time to start replacing golf courses with housing?

Although it is often presented as a binary choice between fields or concrete, development in open space does not have to be a zero-sum game. There is no reason why, with a little creativity and imagination, we cannot find ways to improve public access, promote biodiversity, provide vital new social infrastructure, parkland, food production, leisure uses and new housing, while at the same time respecting the important contribution that open spaces make to the character of suburban London – or even enhance them.

Releasing land for homes

Clusters of high-density housing, set in biodiverse landscapes and linked to the wider public transport network by cycle routes, would be entirely compatible with the broader policy aims of the London Plan, if carried out in an intelligent way. Policy must evolve to allow this to happen.

This could be achieved without a net loss of golfing capacity. The intelligent consolidation of a single course could shorten some higher-par holes without reducing their total number, releasing much-needed land for other uses and improving the experience for time-poor players.

A surprising number of London’s courses lie in easy reach of public transport or close to high streets. More than 1,400ha – exactly a third – lie within what the London Plan considers to be highly accessible zones and therefore suitable for incremental intensification.

Public golf course areas could provide homes for 140,000 people. If redeveloped, London golfers would still have 1,500 holes to play. There are further 74 golf courses within 5km of the outer edge of London. 1,400ha of highly accessible zones. 2,800ha free highly accessible zones left according to the London Plan

The areas of public courses that meet these criteria could alone provide homes for 140,000 people, and London’s golfers would still have 1,500 holes to play. Most of London’s courses lie within the outer edges of the city, and there are a further 74 courses no more than 5km over the border into the Home Counties. Golfers are not deprived of choice when it comes to places to play.

The challenges facing London are myriad, and no single change will solve the current housing crisis. But failing to house those who need a decent place to live is not a result of factors outside our control, but a choice. Access to decent housing is one of the most significant contributors to social and economic inequality. Perhaps more sophisticated thinking about the use of land in London is one way in which we might start to bridge this divide.

This article was first published in the RICS Land Use Journal on 26 July 2022.