Phineas Harper has missed a serious point regarding golf courses (Building houses on Britain’s vast, exclusive golf courses makes sense for everyone – even golfers, 28 November). They are corridors for wildlife and green havens for fixing carbon as well as providing a healthy leisure activity for local communities. At my golf club, in the past three years we have installed more than 80 nest boxes (including raptor boxes), developed five wildflower zones, encouraged wildlife with bird-feeding stations, left felled branches and logs in wooded areas for insects and fungi to thrive, and allowed grass to grow wild at the edge of fairways.
My club has been accredited by the Golf Environment Organization for its sustainability and social responsibility.
May I suggest that housebuilding policies should focus on using brownfield sites, which are more suitable for repurposing, and reusing buildings and land that has previously been developed, rather than undeveloped land or greenfield sites.
John R Fox
Liverpool
• Phineas Harper’s contention that building on golf courses would help tackle our chronic lack of housing and also let the sport shed its elitist tag is flawed. This would lead to a huge loss of green spaces that are enjoyed by golfers and walkers alike, given that many golf courses have public footpaths running through them, and would also have an environmental impact.
It also ignores the obvious fact that golf courses are often on land that is exposed, undulating or otherwise unsuitable for development. And many golf courses are in out-of-the-way places with limited public transport connections – hardly suitable for sustainable development.
John Moore
Newport
• Why not go further? Release even more land for affordable housing by replacing 18-hole courses with “pitch and putt” and crazy golf: very cheap, much loved – often evoking happy seaside holiday memories – and accessible to all.
Mike Stein
Pudsey, West Yorkshire
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