Vince Cable: Build On Golf Courses To Solve The Housing Crisis

[stormymonday_2011]

Around here the golf courses are very short of members, the demographics of golf means that not many youngsters are taking the game - you need to be retired, or successful self-employed in order to take the time out. I'm 50 and when I play my local course I'm often the youngest person there, other than the junior pro !

It's a great game BTW, critics of golf have either never played it, or don't have the attention span needed to learn it

I don't drive a V8, and never have done.

Played it on an off for years as a green fee but never a club member

It is a cruel game and a good walk spoiled

BTW you are spot on about the demographics.

As mentioned above many people who think golf courses are a great place to build houses simply have no conception of how many were built in the last 20 years as a cover for illegal tipping and to avoid landfill tax

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2000/apr/06/waste.uknews

Edited October 8, 2014 by stormymonday_2011

[FallingAwake]

So let me get this straight. This country's Business Secretary is proposing that we shut down private businesses and basically take over their land, in order to provide people with houses?

[billybong]

It sums up the UK economy pretty neatly.

[Dorkins]

And you think doubling the number of houses wouldn't be very, very noticable? I get rather sick of people saying "It's only x%" (in this case apparently only the land the house itself sits on and not everything else that goes with them), as if because the number is a little one it's irrelevent. Try having 1.2% of the pixels on your screen dead and you'll find it very, very annoying.

Interesting that you equate homes where people can live their lives and raise their families with dead pixels. Implies that you don't value the life of other humans particularly highly.

[Dorkins]

Played it on an off for years as a green fee but never a club member

It is a cruel game and a good walk spoiled

BTW you are spot on about the demographics.

As mentioned above many people who think golf courses are a great place to build houses simply have no conception of how many were built in the last 20 years as a cover for illegal tipping and to avoid landfill tax

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2000/apr/06/waste.uknews

Interestingly, Japan also went golf course crazy in the years leading up to the peak of their property bubble in 1989.

[Si1]

So let me get this straight. This country's Business Secretary is proposing that we shut down private businesses and basically take over their land, in order to provide people with houses?

Err. No.

But you have your mind made up so don't bother asking how.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Si1

[Si1]

You have probably not been to any of the northern municipal courses built on old slag heaps and ex council tips.

In fact you would almost certainly not want to live in a house built on some of the UKs golf courses if you knew what lay inches under the surface of some of them

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/11236546.Council_facing___3_5m_bill_to_remove_waste_at_Waterstock_Golf_Club/

http://www.golfecology.co.uk/articles/landfill.html

Are you an expert in brown field site remediation all of a sudden?

[sPinwheel]

Build golf courses on old landfill sites, then build homes on top. I guess one advantage is a local source of flammable gas.

[Si1]

Spectacular NIMBY straw man argument. I've countered it several times. The one that said people are seeking compulsory purchase of golf courses.

No responses to my rebutal I see. Stfu then NIMBY scum

[Hail the Tripod]

Spectacular NIMBY straw man argument. I've countered it several times. The one that said people are seeking compulsory purchase of golf courses.

I don't think many clubs actually own the land. Mostly golf courses are already owned by building companies and very wealthy property speculators, who have been gradually infilling for years. This will be a lovely giveaway to them. I imagine billionaire Richard Caring will be happy to squeeze a load more houses onto the Wentworth estate and make a few more hundred million.

[FallingAwake]

Who said anything about compulsory purchase? If planning permission were granted they'd sell the land, or part of it, in a jiffy

Including sections on the edge of existing towns

OK, so this is your rebuttal I presume.

Now, your statement is perhaps true as it stands (although it makes a massive assumption that golf course owners will sell out to anything that offers higher returns) ... but why focus on golf courses, which is what Vince Cable apparently did? Why not do the same to the parks and forests as well? They no doubt have more economic value as homes.

If we value land purely in terms of "what brings the most economic value", then sure, we should allow homes and nuclear power plants (which probably bring even more economic value than homes, per sq foot) to be built anywhere and everywhere. In fact, come to think of it, why not demolish all the homes to make room for nuclear power plants?

OK, I suppose your point is, removing the planning restrictions will allow people to decide how they want to use that land, whether for a golf course or for a housing estate or a nuclear power plant.

If THAT is Vince Cable's point, then fair enough.

But then, it's not really about "golf courses". The argument is, remove planning restrictions and let people build what and where they want.

By the way, I'm not pro-NIMBY, I'm anti-NIMBY. I think the typical nimby is selfish, in that they're ok for their own house to "concrete over the countryside", but won't let any newcomer enjoy the same benefits.

However, I'd ask why pick on the golf courses, when we have plenty of land to build on in this country? (And to clarify, I've never played a round of golf in my life, so I wouldn't actually miss them.)