WWFC Application Information Hub
Planning application PL/26/07779/FA

4. The claimed improvement to golf

Mind boggling arguments.​

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WWFC presents the proposed golf changes as an improvement: a more flexible, accessible and inclusive offer, suitable for golfers of all levels.

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But the application would reduce the golf area by 2/3 and reduce the total length of golf holes by 2/3.

The new 12 holes would not be longer than 6 of the old course. There would also be mini "Academy Course" of pitch-and-putt scale (average hole length 45 yards) and practice facilities: a driving range and a putting green with no technical specification presented. An existing putting green and an existing practice area would be removed. 

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The central question is therefore simple:

Is this really an improvement in golf provision — or a substantial reduction in golf provision presented as a benefit?

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Strong demand — so reduce the supply?

The Applicant's own Golf Needs Assessment describes local golf demand as strong and growing. It says that participation is at its highest level in a decade, that club membership is above national averages and that the local balance between supply and demand is already finely balanced.

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Most strikingly, it warns that:

“any significant loss of provision would tip this towards demand outweighing supply.”

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Yet significant loss of provision is exactly what the application proposes.

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The same assessment identifies a shortage of flexible, accessible and entry-level forms of golf and says shorter-format provision can complement traditional golf. It does not demonstrate that the answer to that shortage is to remove a substantial part of an existing conventional course.

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There is an obvious difference between:

adding short-format golf to an existing golf offer

and

removing conventional golf in order to replace it with short-format golf.

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“Accessibility” does not require removing six holes

WWFC repeatedly argues that shorter golf will make the course more accessible to people who have less time, less experience or less physical ability.

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Those are legitimate objectives.

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But they do not require an 18-hole course to become a 12-hole course.

An 18-hole course can already offer:

• 9-hole green fees for players with limited time;

• forward tees to reduce playing length and difficulty;

• different tee positions for different abilities;

• beginner coaching;

• Academy or practice provision alongside the main course.

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A golfer who wants a shorter round can stop after nine holes. A golfer who wants a shorter course can play from forward tees. Neither requires six holes to disappear.

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That makes the causal argument rather difficult to follow. The application presents the shorter course as a positive golf innovation. Yet its own documents also explain that reducing the amount of land required for golf is what enables the Performance Hub to be accommodated on the existing course.

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So which came first?

 

Was the golf course reduced because golfers needed a smaller course?

 

Or was a smaller golf course designed because the Performance Hub needed the land?

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12 + 6 does not equal 18

At first sight, a 12-hole main course plus a six-hole Academy Course sounds reassuringly close to retaining 18 holes.

But the numbers conceal the scale of the change.

SPTF's measurements of the submitted layout indicate that the six Academy holes are approximately 33 to 55 yards long, around 280 yards in total. They are therefore pitch-and-putt holes rather than six conventional golf holes. The layout also comes without any technical specification. What quality are the tees, greens, and potentially bunkers?

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The proposed 12-hole main course is also exceptionally short. On SPTF's measurements it totals approximately 1,974 yards, averaging about 165 yards per hole.

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The Applicant's own Golf Needs Assessment uses 1,500 yards as the minimum length for a standard nine-hole course. Expressed on a simple nine-hole equivalent basis, the proposed 12-hole SBGC layout comes to approximately 1,481 yards per nine holes. That does not create a formal classification rule for a 12-hole course, but it gives a useful indication of just how compressed the proposed layout is.

 

So:

12 short main-course holes + 6 pitch-and-putt holes are not equivalent to the existing 18-hole course simply because both totals happen to contain the number 18. Those 18 holes are crammed into about 33% of the original course.

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“For golfers of all levels”?

The Design and Access Statement repeatedly describes the proposed offer as suitable “for golfers of all levels.”

 

That claim deserves scrutiny.

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Golf is not only casual recreation. For many players it includes:

• developing and maintaining a handicap;

• playing qualifying rounds;

• club competitions;

• inter-club golf;

• medals and stablefords;

• progressing through different levels of the game;

• belonging to an established golf club.

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The application does not demonstrate convincingly how the proposed final course will support the full range of conventional handicap, competitive and club golf currently associated with an established full-length course.

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That matters when the new arrangement is being promoted as more inclusive.

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A facility can become easier for one group while becoming less useful to another.

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Making provision more suitable for beginners is valuable. But if that is achieved by removing provision required by established, competitive and handicap golfers, it is not automatically an increase in inclusivity. It may simply change which golfers are catered for.

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What does Chiddingfold really prove?

WWFC relies heavily on experience associated with Chiddingfold Golf in Surrey, where an 18-hole course was converted to a 12-hole model.

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But the comparison is much less straightforward than the headline suggests.

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Chiddingfold appears substantially to have retained and adapted its established golf-course structure. South Buckinghamshire Golf Course would undergo a much more extensive reconfiguration, with the Performance Hub occupying a large part of the existing course and the remaining golf compressed into the residual area.

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There is also a question of actual demand.

SPTF compared publicly visible online tee-time bookings at Chiddingfold and SBGC over the same period in August 2025. The comparison showed approximately three times as many booked tee times at SBGC. When allowance was made for the different course formats and the fact that only a small proportion of SBGC bookings were for nine holes, the approximate difference in booked holes of golf was around 4.35:1 in favour of SBGC.

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That comparison has limitations. Online bookings do not necessarily capture every society, telephone booking or other form of use, and a tee-time booking does not reveal the number of players in the group.

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But it does raise an obvious question:

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Why should a substantially less-used 12-hole model be treated as evidence that reducing a demonstrably busier 18-hole course will increase participation?

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If Chiddingfold is relied upon as proof of concept, its actual utilisation should be demonstrated, not merely asserted.

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The “improvement” also releases the land

This is perhaps the most important point.

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The Applicant's own documents make clear that reducing the amount of land used for golf is what allows the Performance Hub to be developed.

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The golf reduction is therefore not simply an independent programme of sporting improvement. It is the mechanism by which land is released for the football development.

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That does not mean that every element of the new golf offer is without value. An Academy Course, practice facilities, shorter rounds and beginner-friendly provision may all have genuine benefits.

But those benefits must be weighed against whether they are additional and unachievable without football development, and what is being removed.

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“Judge me in a few years’ time”

Phil Stevens, whose shorter-format golf experience is relied upon in support of the proposal, has said:

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“Don’t judge me now. Judge me in a few years’ time.”

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That may be an entirely reasonable request from someone developing a new golf product.

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But the planning decision cannot wait a few years.

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Buckinghamshire Council has to decide now whether replacing the existing 18-hole course with this particular proposal constitutes a sufficiently certain and substantial benefit to carry weight in the planning balance.

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The burden therefore cannot be discharged by aspiration:

• the new course will attract more people;

• it will be more inclusive;

• golfers will prefer the shorter format;

• participation will grow;

• the model will prove successful in time.

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Those are predictions. For them to carry significant planning weight, they need supporting evidence now.

And in this case there is an additional difficulty: the existing golf provision is not hypothetical. Its scale, use, playing characteristics and historic participation are known. The proposed improvement is the uncertain part.

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Our conclusion

Planning permission cannot be granted today on the basis that evidence of the claimed benefit may emerge several years later.

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If the claimed improvement to golf is relied upon as a benefit of the development, its likely magnitude, accessibility, inclusivity, participation and practical operation must be demonstrated sufficiently at the time the application is determined.

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On the evidence presently available, we consider the opposite conclusion more convincing: golf provision would be significantly reduced in scale, playing length, accessibility to established forms of golf and inclusivity across the full range of golfers — and the available booking evidence gives no basis for assuming that the proposed shorter-format model would attract greater use.

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The golf changes should therefore be treated as part of the harm caused by the proposal, not as a compensating benefit.

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