The UK golf footprint

[Jud_T]

Adrian,

Housing always appreciated here as well, until it didn't.

[Tony_Muldoon]

MMM.  I’m not confident about the maths here.  I drive around the country a lot and though I keep a sharp eye out, I’m not seeing golf courses 1% of the time.


Golf seems to attract these odious and hard to disprove comparisons. We have a dear Irish friend who occasionally, late at night,  will work herself up into a fury about the iniquities of life. I’m always waiting for her to say “ it’s wrong that there are more golf courses than Childrens Playgrounds in Ireland…”.  Once I asked her the next day where she’d got that nugget of info from. She sheepishly smiled and said it was often trotted out by politicians of a certain hue.

Let's see.

UK is 60m acres. There are approx 2,500 golf courses averaging - say - 150 acres each. That totals 375k acres of golf course which equals about 0.6 percent. Guess he could be right.

Blimey, who's side are you on?

Still it's nice to see some facts.  However if the average land for a "full size" golf course is 125 acres then statistically his 1.1% is out by a factor of 100%.

I presume when calculating the acreage of a Golf course we would include Club house, machine sheds, access roads etc. plus ALL the 'natural' spaces between holes etc.   I bet the housing figure does not include front and back gardens etc.  Most of those gardens will never get built on and my gut feeling remains that this is that this is a spurious and irrelevant argument where once again Golf gets dragged in for no good reason.


So Ally how many kids playgrounds are there in Ireland?

[Duncan Cheslett]

The more surprising statistic for me is that les than 1% of land is taken up by residential dwellings.

It is a given that there is a shortage of housing in the UK; the ridiculously high price of shelter proves the point beyond question. Clearly there is enough land to increase the housing stock significantly - so what is the problem?

Planning controls and politics.

Planning restrictions on new housing developments are absurdly prohibative.  If every farmer on the outskirts of an urban area who is struggling to make a living was able to develop 5% of his land for housing the nation's housing needs could be solved almost overnight with minimum impact.

Of course though, it will never happen so long as local people have a say. Everyone agrees that we need more houses, just not near me!


Down the road in Woodford, a large aeroplane factory closed down last year leaving a huge site derelict with 100s of acres of airfileld. It is perfectly located for upwards of 1000 new homes and this is exactly what is planned. The local residents however, are up in arms. This dispite the fact that not one of them lives in a house more than 50 years old!

It was fine for their house to be built overlooking the countryside - just not for anyone elses.

This detestable NIMBYism is endemic and politicians run scared of it. After all, they are dependent on these selfish bastards for votes.


What gets me is that some of the most beautiful houses and developments in the country were built at a time when planning controls were non-existent.  Let the market function and abolish the lot!

[Ally Mcintosh]

MMM.  I’m not confident about the maths here.  I drive around the country a lot and though I keep a sharp eye out, I’m not seeing golf courses 1% of the time.


Golf seems to attract these odious and hard to disprove comparisons. We have a dear Irish friend who occasionally, late at night,  will work herself up into a fury about the iniquities of life. I’m always waiting for her to say “ it’s wrong that there are more golf courses than Childrens Playgrounds in Ireland…”.  Once I asked her the next day where she’d got that nugget of info from. She sheepishly smiled and said it was often trotted out by politicians of a certain hue.

Let's see.

UK is 60m acres. There are approx 2,500 golf courses averaging - say - 150 acres each. That totals 375k acres of golf course which equals about 0.6 percent. Guess he could be right.

Blimey, who's side are you on?

Still it's nice to see some facts.  However if the average land for a "full size" golf course is 125 acres then statistically his 1.1% is out by a factor of 100%.

I presume when calculating the acreage of a Golf course we would include Club house, machine sheds, access roads etc. plus ALL the 'natural' spaces between holes etc.   I bet the housing figure does not include front and back gardens etc.  Most of those gardens will never get built on and my gut feeling remains that this is that this is a spurious and irrelevant argument where once again Golf gets dragged in for no good reason.


So Ally how many kids playgrounds are there in Ireland?

Tony - I'm glad you asked.

Through 15 years of Celtic Tiger wealth where the Irish government had so much money that they didn't know what to do with it, it is my immovable opinion that the only two things about the country that were improved beyond recognition were the roads and the childrens' playgrounds...

Ireland has better kids playgrounds than every other country I have visited bar none.

[Paul Gray]

The more surprising statistic for me is that les than 1% of land is taken up by residential dwellings.

It is a given that there is a shortage of housing in the UK; the ridiculously high price of shelter proves the point beyond question. Clearly there is enough land to increase the housing stock significantly - so what is the problem?

Planning controls and politics.

Planning restrictions on new housing developments are absurdly prohibative.  If every farmer on the outskirts of an urban area who is struggling to make a living was able to develop 5% of his land for housing the nation's housing needs could be solved almost overnight with minimum impact.

Of course though, it will never happen so long as local people have a say. Everyone agrees that we need more houses, just not near me!


Down the road in Woodford, a large aeroplane factory closed down last year leaving a huge site derelict with 100s of acres of airfileld. It is perfectly located for upwards of 1000 new homes and this is exactly what is planned. The local residents however, are up in arms. This dispite the fact that not one of them lives in a house more than 50 years old!

It was fine for their house to be built overlooking the countryside - just not for anyone elses.

This detestable NIMBYism is endemic and politicians run scared of it. After all, they are dependent on these selfish bastards for votes.


What gets me is that some of the most beautiful houses and developments in the country were built at a time when planning controls were non-existent.  Let the market function and abolish the lot!

Very well said Duncan.

Save for completely abolishing every planning regulation, I couldn't agree more.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Yes well said Duncan. When you consider housing costs today a £150,000 house represents £75,000 roughly to build it and £75,000 as the plot value. If the government made more land available for housing by relaxing the rules, you would get people deal at £25,000 per acre for their farmland, that is three times more than it is currently worth, but still a good way shy of the heady days where land with planning permission was worth 300 times agricultural value. I actually wrote to the government and suggested that they buy the land themselves and build the homes (like the used too), the £75,000 house cost would still be the same, the plot value would be £5,000 not £75,000 so a fair saving. People could rent them off the government or buy them under the terms I mentioned earlier in the post

The real problem with the price here in the UK is the land values. Another problem is agricultural land (that normally used for new golf courses) has tripled in about 7-10 years.

[Lou_Duran]

Paul

Your thinking only works if we assume that everyone should own a house and that it is incumbant upon the government to make it happen.  I seriously question that premise.  

Ciao

What rock did you crawl from under, you uncaring right-wing nut job.  Just because you are a winner of life's lottery, a lucky-spermer who probably gamed the system to own a home, you act all high and mighty.  Why shouldn't the government help those who must suffer the indignity of renting?  I mean, the UK is rich enough to provide free food, wonderful healthcare, outstanding education, income maintenance, and all sorts of modern conveniences, why not just step up the game a bit and also provide free housing.  And not the substandard stuff- a nice flat in the middle of the city, or a charming cottage in the country, with a garden.  And while at it, free golf too.  I mean, it is the society's wealth (as in Commonwealth), right?  Certainly you are aware of THE social contract?  Look to the paradise known as Cuba for encouragement.  Or more recently, to Maduro's "fair pricing" in Venezuela for a glimpse of what's possible.  Even the still much too regressive Americans have shown a bit of compassion with temporary no-limit food stamp cards.  If only we could take the martyred John Lennon's lovely sentiments to heart:

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world


Now, if you think I am just a dreamer, I am not.        I am being totally flippant, acerbic, but mostly in good fun.  There is not a small percentage of people who actually think this way and would have taken me seriously but for this disclaimer.

While I am not that familiar with UK housing policies, I am with those on this side of the pond.  There probably isn't a sector of our economy more controlled by the government at all levels than housing, OTHER than health care, and we all know how well that is going here.  One only has to look at the strength of government by state, county, and city to see a direct correlation with prices.  The normal supply and demand factors are exacerbated by government regulations.  P & Z are necessary evils in populated areas, but common sense has long given way in many places to a number of other agendas which have little to do with homes and real estate.

Who knows, some day the Occupy Movement in the U.S. might help resolve our golf course over-supply problem.  You don't hear much about the Venezuelan golf industry having problems since Chavez brought to light the inequities of land use for golf courses while the masses were relegated to squatting in squalid conditions on the hillsides of Caracas.  Brave New World.    

[Sean_A]

Duncan

Can you define housing needs?  Its not as if we don't have a massive government blanket already provided for those in need of housing.  Take for example my village.  10% of the dwellings are social housing where the folks cannot outright buy the property, but they have a much reduced rent bill compared to open market housing.  Now, who is going to buy all these new homes.  Who can afford to buy all these new homes?  No wait, now the governmnent has to see that cheap money is made available and that up to 40% of the big projects are dedicated social housing.  We are now in the middle of a government mandated houisng boom.  For most plans over 10 houses 40% of the dwellings are dedicated for social housing of some sort.  Where do local authorities want to build?  In villages of course!  Just where there are no jobs, poor transport links and stretched infrastructure including massive drainage problems.  There are over 100,000 empty dwellings in cities, but for some reason the government thinks these should remain empty and instead we should continue to erode the greenbelt.  I say beggars can't be choosers.  Why  should we build in villages, which are not equipped to be urbanized, when we already have loads of empty urban dwellings th can be renovated to quite a high standard?  

I hear the word "sustainable" chucked around all the time.  So far as I can see, continuing to build houses and the necessary infrastructure in a small space such as England is not sustainable.  I reckon the first part of the problem is for the government to develop a sensible immigration policy based on economic forecasts.  Until a country can control its borders properly, it isn't a proper country.

Ciao

[Jon Wiggett]

Sean,

you are correct about the empty buildings in cities but part of the problem as well as these properties being more expensive to buy is it costs more and is far harder to renovate these than to build new. Yet you can ask more for a new build in the country because people with money want to live there. It would be much better if city centres were more residential like many places in mainland Europe. There is such a lack of joined up thinking on the part of the authorities it beggars belief.


On the point of immigration, if the borders agency made sure that all the people left when their visas ran out then that would be a good start. The country being swamped by immigrants is more of a perceived problem than a real one IMO.


Jon

[Sean_A]

Sean,

you are correct about the empty buildings in cities but part of the problem as well as these properties being more expensive to buy is it costs more and is far harder to renovate these than to build new. Yet you can ask more for a new build in the country because people with money want to live there. It would be much better if city centres were more residential like many places in mainland Europe. There is such a lack of joined up thinking on the part of the authorities it beggars belief.


On the point of immigration, if the borders agency made sure that all the people left when their visas ran out then that would be a good start. The country being swamped by immigrants is more of a perceived problem than a real one IMO.


Jon

Jon

Sorry, when the economy is in the state it is in, there is no justification for immigration.  I am all for immigration, but I am more for sensible immigration.  No question there has been a huge influx of immigrants since I have been in the country.  I think a very conservative estimate would be 2.1 million net legal migration since 1999.  When compared to Germany, which has had a much stronger and more stable economy over that period, that is a huge and I think unsustainable number.

You are right, folks want to live in the country, but at some point it has to make sense to use what has already been built in the cities - especially for social housing.  I think you are overestimating the cost of these dwellings compared to the cost of buying prime country land to build on.  Renovation can cost more, but then the gov can always loosen bulding regs to cope with the demand for low cost housing.  It has to be better than looking at empty buildings falling down.

Ciao

[Jon Wiggett]

Sean,

if you want to compare the UK to Germany then you will find that Germany has a much bigger % of immigrants in it population as has Switzerland (20% last figures out). Immigration is not really a problem in cases such as students who pay to come here and leave when finished (in theory). Whilst there has been an increase in immigration in the last 20 years even if all the non UK born people were deported tomorrow it would not make much of a difference.

I agree totally with your take on empty properties though do not think the problem is building regulations. It could be solved if it were illegal to have a property empty for longer than 2 years forcing owners to do something with properties rather than just sitting on them. I am all for the reresidentialisation (not a real word but you know what I mean ) of city centres. It would reinvigorate the highstreets and lower crime all in one.

Jon

[Sean_A]

I spose what I think is at least 10% of the UK population being foreign born is not significant - needless to say, I think of 10% of 70 million as very significant.  I also think it is a huge jump from the past many decades, maybe even ever.  

Ciao

[Paul Gray]

I spose what I think is at least 10% of the UK population being foreign born is not significant - needless to say, I think of 10% of 70 million as very significant.  I also think it is a huge jump from the past many decades, maybe even ever.  

Ciao

I stand to be corrected, but aren't you a foreigner?

[Sean_A]

I spose what I think is at least 10% of the UK population being foreign born is not significant - needless to say, I think of 10% of 70 million as very significant.  I also think it is a huge jump from the past many decades, maybe even ever.  

Ciao

I stand to be corrected, but aren't you a foreigner?

You lot are quick to the mark .  I am now a subject of the Queen (and her heirs) and as a tax paying (regretably) subject I feel entitled to spout off .

Ciao

[Sean_A]

Wha happen?

Ciao

[Paul Gray]

I spose what I think is at least 10% of the UK population being foreign born is not significant - needless to say, I think of 10% of 70 million as very significant.  I also think it is a huge jump from the past many decades, maybe even ever.  

Ciao

I stand to be corrected, but aren't you a foreigner?

You lot are quick to the mark .  I am now a subject of the Queen (and her heirs) and as a tax paying (regretably) subject I feel entitled to spout off .

Ciao

No problem with me any which way. Figures show that you foreigners (you actually made reference to foreign born so, again, I'm setting myself to be corrected but I assume you fall into that category) bring, on average, greater economic benefit to this country than us British white trash that were born and raised here. The more of you that want to come over here and feed us parasites the better.  

Of course, being an American you were, somewhere back down the line, an immigrant over there as well so you'll probably claim to be more British than I am when all is said and done. But then ultimately we're all just gypos (no offence intended to anyone) that left Africa a long time ago anyway. Best then that we all just pack up the caravans and go home.

[Lou_Duran]

Sean,

I agree totally with your take on empty properties though do not think the problem is building regulations. It could be solved if it were illegal to have a property empty for longer than 2 years forcing owners to do something with properties rather than just sitting on them. I am all for the reresidentialisation (not a real word but you know what I mean ) of city centres. It would reinvigorate the highstreets and lower crime all in one.

Jon

Scary stuff, but probably a good illustration of why we deserve the government we elect.   Churchill's observation about democracy might deserve further inquiry and, perhaps, complete reassessment.  While we're busy making things we don't like illegal, let's push for mandating that open tee times at the best golf clubs be filled by anyone ready to play for a token fee (just enough to cover variable costs), with subsidies for the self-identified poor, legally in the country or not.  I'm sure that the same quality of reasoning regarding crime offered above would suggest similarly felicitous results from this new government initiative.  Not that idleness/the ability to sustain oneself without work has anything to do with what ails so many "progressive" societies.

I am taking serious suggestions where I might escape to from this madness.    

[Sean_A]

Sweet Lou

I too thought that was scary stuff, but then Jon's lies up north, thats commie land up there  .

Ciao 

[Jon Wiggett]

Lou,

that empty and dilapidated buildings lower the value of other properties and lead to an increase in crime is something that has been shown in multiple studies including some in the US ergo it is better for the whole community if such conditions are avoided. I suspect that you are in the US and so find my position as baffling as most Europeans find the gun laws in the US.

Sean,

interesting that you find my position scary when you are the same yourself with not allowing individuals to build. Bit of double standards there North of the UK are the Scandinavian countries which are quite liberal and advanced. The UK does not share any borders with commie countries unlike other western lands.

Jon

[Sean_A]

Jon

Foul he cried!  I am all for building homes, factories, etc in places which make sense, without government subsidies and in a proper real estate market without artificially low interest rates. The savers in this country have taken it on the chin long enough for those knuckleheads who can't figure out how to responsibly offer a loan and for those who don't know how to responsibly take on a loan.    

Ciao

[Jon Wiggett]

Foul he cried Yes maybe but what do you really want? You say that all the empty buildings in the urban areas should be brought back into use. They are empty because the owners are not interested in renovating them but you do not want them to be encouraged to do so. You appear to think lowering building regs will get owners to renovate yet a good percentage of such buildings are bought as a land investment with no intention for short term development so you need some sort of incentive to make quick development attractive.

Having said that I think we both are in agreement about the desired end result.

Jon