By Colin Wiles, housing consultant.

In this blog I’m returning to a theme I’ve covered in many previous article and blogs: land use, or rather its misuse.

All UK housing folk will know that there are some popular misconceptions about land in this country: we live on an overcrowded island; the countryside is being concreted over at an alarming rate; too much land, especially good farmland, is being built upon; there is enough brownfield land for all the homes we need. And so it goes on.

In fact only around 9% of the UK is built upon and the footprint of actual homes represents just 1.1% of our total land area. Meanwhile, over 45% of England’s land area is protected with National Park, SSSI, AONB, or green belt status.

Green belts alone constitute 12.5% of England’s land area and many of our major cities are surrounded by them, leading, in the eyes of many commentators, to increased commuting (and emissions) and higher land prices.

As for the argument about farmland, a staggering amount of land is devoted to horses, golf courses, and other minority uses, much of it suitable for agriculture, but you will barely hear a whisper from the likes of the CPRE about this misuse of land.

By my calculations, horse-grazing takes up as much land as half of the built-up area of England – enough for millions of new homes.

Anyway, talking of golf courses, I was interested to see a recent article in the Guardian which quoted some recent research by architect Russell Curtis showing that, in London alone, publicly-owned golf courses could provide at least 300,000 homes.

London has about 3.6 million homes, so an additional 300,000 would be a significant increase. And yes, you read that right: publicly owned golf courses.  Were you aware that so many golf courses were in public ownership? Curtis reveals that nearly half of London’s golf courses are owned by public bodies, including local councils and the Church Commissioners.

Out of 94 golf courses in London (they consume 4,331 hectares of land, that’s larger than the Borough of Brent) 43 are in public ownership and use up 1,600 hectares – that’s larger than the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It is extraordinary.

Shockingly, Curtis reveals Enfield Golf Club pays an annual sum of only £13,500 to the council for the privilege of renting its 39 hectare golf course in the borough. That is a very poor rate of return.

Curtis reveals that golf takes up 17% of all the green space in London, and public accessibility is limited. Surely the public bodies that own these courses need to consider other uses?

Not just housing, but allotments, wildlife areas, parks, and woodland walks?

In my earlier blog about golf courses, I did some back of the envelope calculations and worked out that there are around 2,000 18-hole golf courses in England and hundreds of smaller 9-hole and pitch and putt courses, plus at least 600 golf driving ranges.

I reckoned each 18-hole course requires up to 90 hectares of land (including practice courses, clubhouses, car-parking, etc) so my best estimate was that golf takes up around 270,000 hectares in England – that’s 2% of England’s total land area of 13.4 million hectares.

I made it clear the figures were guesstimates and wrote, “if anyone can contradict my figures I would be pleased to amend them”. My sums were likely an over-estimate but they set quite a few hares running. The figures were taken up by Shelter and others.

Kate Allen in The Financial Times had a look at them and came up with a lower estimate than mine, but I think her figures are very much an under-estimate.

Anyway, the latest research by Curtis comes up with a figure of 46 hectares for an average 18-hole course, but that is just in London.

I think my point sticks: that golf courses take up a heck of a lot of land, for something that is very much a minority sport and not very diverse to boot. (The Open Golf was recently held in Sandwich, where I live, and most of the vehicle and pedestrian traffic went past my house. By my own observations I would estimate that 95% of golf fans are white men, with perhaps 4% white women.)

Curtis says “this is not a war on golf,” but I think there should certainly be a wider debate about how we waste land on such minority interests. Golf is no doubt very enjoyable but it uses up vast amounts of land that could be used for more useful purposes.

Perhaps we could start by calling on all those housing folk who play it to switch to sports like cricket, rugby, cycling, or bowls. The same applies to horse riding.

I recall from my earlier days in housing that the CIH and others were frequently organising golf days. I hope that is not happening now.

After all, if demand for these land-hungry pursuits declines then some of this land could become available for homes and more socially-beneficial uses.

So, if you have a golfer or horse rider in your place of work, try converting them today!