00:00Could golf courses be the solution to the UK's housing shortage?
00:03Pressure is increasing on club owners to scrap their greens
00:06and sell the land to housing developers.
00:08There are roughly 1,800 golf courses in Britain,
00:12accounting for over a quarter of the golf courses in Europe.
00:14In England alone, they occupy an estimated 667,000 acres.
00:20That's more than twice the size of Greater Manchester,
00:22and around 2% of the country's total land area.
00:25The golf courses in Greater London cover an area the size of the entire borough of Brent,
00:29which means the area occupied by a single golfer could provide a home for around 380 people,
00:35said architect Russell Curtis in his Golf Belt report.
00:38There's a clear incentive for golf clubs.
00:40One in five of them are now estimated to be financially vulnerable, said the Times,
00:44with rising maintenance, insurance and staffing costs,
00:47leaving them struggling to remain viable.
00:50In the last decade, 60 clubs have been forced to close.
00:53Courses are typically large, low-density sites on the outskirts of towns
00:57and usually have decent transport links,
00:59both of which are attractive to developers and councils for building homes.
01:03Many times.
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