State of golf in UK

[Thomas Dai]

All of this is correct and all of the blame can be laid at the door of successive governments that have failed to address the chronic propert shortage in this country. Increase supply and prices go down.

Property shortage - cause - increasing population - 5.2m more population since 2000 - that's a 8% increase in 14 yrs. From 1990-2000 the increase was only 1.6m or 2.5%. I suspect a certain Govt elected in 1997 had rather a lot to do with this.
BTW, I wonder how many of the 5.2m more since 2000 are - or arn't - playing golf!
atb

Respectfully, there's a lot of guff talked about population increases in a country which is still, inch for inch, overwhelmingly rural. It's much like the ridiculous argument being put forward that we're that desperate for land that we need to start seizing land on golf courses to built affordable housing. Utter nonsense.
The only housing problem in this country is as a result of government pandering to small minded nimbys that often live in marginal constituencies. As a result, housing gets ever more expensive in real terms, people therefore have to embed themselves in absurd levels of debt in order to buy astarter home and the first decent Governor of the Bank of England for quite a while has to keep interest rates ridiculously low in order to avoid mass repossession.

I think we're going to have to agree to differ. As someone who now lives in a semi-rural area, the changes in terms of the number of people and the general busyness in the semi-rural community has been very significant. Very rural areas are different, but in semi-rural areas quiet roads are no longer quiet. Kids no longer play football on the street near my house, indeed they now ride their bikes on the pavements coz the roads have got so busy as to be unsafe. School buildings are no longer big enough and classes expanding. Urbanisation has expanded. Houses are built where once apples grew. Supermarkets are outside small towns. New roads and road widening is ever present. Try to travel and the motorways are massively more busy. A debate can go on about nimbyism and marginal constituancies, but the simple numbers say that the population of the UK, and that's the people we know about, not the one's who are non-recorded, was 56m in 1980, 57m in 1990, 59m in 2000 and now 65m. That to me is a very significant increase in pretty short period of time.

Strange thing in golf terms though. A line of thinking would be that more people would mean more demand for golf, but yet in the last decade or so the number of golfers has dropped.

atb

[Paul Gray]

All of this is correct and all of the blame can be laid at the door of successive governments that have failed to address the chronic propert shortage in this country. Increase supply and prices go down.

Property shortage - cause - increasing population - 5.2m more population since 2000 - that's a 8% increase in 14 yrs. From 1990-2000 the increase was only 1.6m or 2.5%. I suspect a certain Govt elected in 1997 had rather a lot to do with this.
BTW, I wonder how many of the 5.2m more since 2000 are - or arn't - playing golf!
atb

Respectfully, there's a lot of guff talked about population increases in a country which is still, inch for inch, overwhelmingly rural. It's much like the ridiculous argument being put forward that we're that desperate for land that we need to start seizing land on golf courses to built affordable housing. Utter nonsense.
The only housing problem in this country is as a result of government pandering to small minded nimbys that often live in marginal constituencies. As a result, housing gets ever more expensive in real terms, people therefore have to embed themselves in absurd levels of debt in order to buy astarter home and the first decent Governor of the Bank of England for quite a while has to keep interest rates ridiculously low in order to avoid mass repossession.

I think we're going to have to agree to differ. As someone who now lives in a semi-rural area, the changes in terms of the number of people and the general busyness in the semi-rural community has been very significant. Very rural areas are different, but in semi-rural areas quiet roads are no longer quiet. Kids no longer play football on the street near my house, indeed they now ride their bikes on the pavements coz the roads have got so busy as to be unsafe. School buildings are no longer big enough and classes expanding. Urbanisation has expanded. Houses are built where once apples grew. Supermarkets are outside small towns. New roads and road widening is ever present. Try to travel and the motorways are massively more busy. A debate can go on about nimbyism and marginal constituancies, but the simple numbers say that the population of the UK, and that's the people we know about, not the one's who are non-recorded, was 56m in 1980, 57m in 1990, 59m in 2000 and now 65m. That to me is a very significant increase in pretty short period of time.

Strange thing in golf terms though. A line of thinking would be that more people would mean more demand for golf, but yet in the last decade or so the number of golfers has dropped.

atb

We will have to agree to disagree. Don't worry though, with current trends population will be falling by the time you and I are six feet under! 

[Jon Wiggett]

Adrian,

there are perhaps 15 to 20 clubs here that really depend on US players. I cannot speak for elsewhere but here it is really only Dornoch from the private clubs and to a lesser extent Nairn. As both clubs are full I would not consider that either have any real effect on the membership fees of other clubs. Clubs up here generally do not spend money unless they have to in order to keep costs and member's fees down. Dornoch has plenty of spare cash yet have decided to stay with their modest but adequate clubhouse rather than splash out on some plush new one. Infact, I am struggling to think of a private club up here with a knock out clubhouse.

Do not forget £15K is a good wage up here but then again £150K will buy a plush new house sorry villa.

I am puzzled as to why if all the clubs have probably done okay why some should close. Isn't okay good enough?

Jon

[Niall C]

atb

I would be very surprised to see courses turn back into farms unless they are wind or solar farms.  Even now, I think the rage for turbines is on the decline.

Ciao

Sean

Turbines were/are largely grant driven from what I can see although it's obvious we are heading towards an energy crisis that has been well forecast as successive governments have failed to grasp the nettle.

Niall