Two Surrey golf clubs face closure under separate housing schemes that would between them put around 1,500 homes on land currently occupied by 36 holes.
At the 120-year-old Chipstead Golf Club, the proposals have arrived from outside and drawn near-unanimous local opposition, while at Surrey National, the club has itself entered into an agreement with the developer to promote its land for housing.
Both sit in a county long regarded as holding one of the densest concentrations of quality golf in Britain – and both follow the approval in June of the demolition of Redhill & Reigate Golf Club’s clubhouse, another of Surrey’s oldest, for ten homes.
Chipstead: 150 objections, three in support
At Chipstead, Taylor Wimpey submitted pre-application documents to Reigate & Banstead Borough Council at the end of July covering up to 300 homes across 25 hectares of green belt, together with new roads. The application boundary takes in the 18-hole course but not the clubhouse.
The club has been played over since 1906, is family-owned and is among the county’s oldest. Several of its bunkers were formed by bomb craters during the Second World War.
At this stage the developer has only asked the council for a screening opinion – a determination of whether a pre-application environmental impact assessment is required. A decision is expected within weeks, and a full environmental impact analysis would be required in any event should an application follow.
Nearly 150 comments have already been lodged on the planning portal. Three support the scheme.
“Any form of development on Chipstead Golf Course would categorically ruin the village,” one resident wrote, citing existing congestion, oversubscribed schools and surgeries, and deer that range across the course.
Another said: “Chipstead enjoys a semi-rural village identity that will be lost if the principal green space in the north of the community is destroyed. Apart from the blatant Green Belt infringement, the increase in road traffic associated with 300 additional homes will make an already difficult congestion problem impossible.”
A third argued the course serves non-golfers as a walking route to the station and provides “a golf course for an ageing population who would struggle to play at a larger more expansive course”.
Surrey National: club a party to the scheme
Barratt Redrow has confirmed it is preparing a planning application for the Surrey National site on Rook Lane, which extends to more than 200 acres and includes the 18-hole course, clubhouse and a wedding and events venue.
“We have an agreement with Surrey National Golf Club to promote land at the club for potential development with Tandridge Council through their local plan process,” a spokesperson said. “We are currently exploring the preparation of a planning application which, if successful, would deliver much needed new homes in Surrey.”
The club wrote to members recently setting out the agreement. An extract, subsequently posted to Facebook by members, read: “We cannot comment on the likelihood of planning consent being granted, but it is important to note that, even if a consent were to be granted, it would be a number of years before any development would commence – so golf will continue to be played for the foreseeable future.”
The site is identified in the draft Tandridge 2044 Local Plan as having capacity for up to 1,200 homes. Notably, the council’s own assessment classes the golf course as unsuitable for development at that scale, and records its importance as a recreational resource.
That does not settle the matter. Central government has directed Tandridge to plan for around 12,300 homes over the next 15 years, in a district that is 94 percent green belt – an arithmetic that leaves few sites untouched.
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