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.'
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.
A version of this article was originally published on 28 July 2022.
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