English golf is facing a defining moment

Guest Article by Phil Atkinson, Head of Planning, Custodian Golf

English golf is approaching a moment that will quietly shape its future for the next generation.

For years, club committees have balanced rising maintenance costs, ageing infrastructure and shifting participation trends. Many estates were designed for a different era, when land was cheaper, operating costs were lower and accessibility was less critical.

Now the planning system is changing in a way that golf cannot ignore.

The Planning Window For Golf is Now Open

In early 2026, the UK Government will introduce a new Local Plan making system that will apply to every Local Planning Authority in England. This framework will replace the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) Regulations 2012 and is designed to modernise and accelerate the preparation of Local Plans that guide future development across each district.

The new system introduces a mandatory 30-month timetable from plan preparation to adoption, alongside compulsory five-year reviews to ensure all Local Plans remain up to date.

Crucially, all Local Planning Authorities with out-of-date plans, or plans not sufficiently advanced under the current system, must have a new Local Plan timetable in place by mid 2026. That statutory process will begin with a formal call for sites to identify the most sustainable locations for housing and employment growth.

This creates a defined and time limited opportunity.

For English golf clubs with surplus or underused land, the forthcoming Local Plan cycle offers a structured pathway to secure strategic development allocations that can unlock capital value. In appropriate circumstances, this may support partial land release to strengthen balance sheets or enable full relocation to more accessible and sustainable sites better aligned with modern participation and catchment patterns.

Based on Custodian Golf’s national dataset, hundreds of English clubs are operating under structural or financial pressure. For many, land strategy forms part of the long-term solution.

However, once draft allocations are established, the opportunity to influence strategic outcomes reduces significantly. In many districts, the practical window to shape Local Plan allocations will narrow sharply after 2026, with the next full review cycle unlikely before 2031.

The time for golf clubs to understand their position is now.

From Planning Pressure to Commercial Possibility

This is not simply about policy change. It’s about estate strategy.

Across England, many clubs sit on land holdings larger than current participation models require. Some have peripheral parcels that are rarely used. Others maintain awkward outfields or legacy layouts that no longer serve modern catchment populations.

Under the new Local Plan cycle, these areas can be assessed properly and strategically.

Handled correctly, surplus land can:

• Strengthen reserves
• Remove structural deficits
• Eliminate debt
• Fund clubhouse modernisation
• Invest in drainage and course resilience
• Improve practice and junior facilities
• Enhance biodiversity and environmental performance

For a number of clubs, it may also enable relocation to sites that are more accessible, commercially sustainable and better aligned with future participation patterns.

This isn’t about diminishing golf.

It’s about renewing it.

Leadership at Board Level

Not every club should promote land.
Not every club should relocate.
Not every club is under structural pressure.

But every board has a duty to understand its strategic land position before the Local Plan map is drawn for the next five years.

Once allocations are drafted, influence reduces.

This isn’t about urgency for urgency’s sake. It’s about informed governance.

Members of our leadership team previously oversaw the relocation of Royal Norwich Golf Club, a project that was runner up in World Golf Development of the Year. That experience demonstrated what can happen when land strategy is addressed early, transparently and with clarity of purpose.

The result wasn’t decline.

It was renewal.

The Question For Every Club Chair

By the end of 2026, most English districts will have fixed the broad areas where housing growth will take place for the next five years.

When that map is drawn, it will not be redrawn lightly.

If your club has not assessed its land position before that moment, you are no longer shaping the conversation. You’re responding to it.

This is not about promoting development for its own sake. It is about understanding whether your estate is optimised for the next 25 years of the game.

Golf clubs exist because previous generations made bold decisions at the right time.

The planning cycle now gives this generation a similar moment.

The question is simple:

Will your club understand its strategic land position before the Local Plan is written, or after?

The window is open.

It will not remain open for long.

About Custodian Golf

At Custodian Golf, we unite data, planning and golf expertise to help clubs navigate moments like this with clarity. Our comprehensive national dataset, combined with decades of planning experience and deep industry insight, allows us to assess each club’s position objectively.

The aim is not to promote change unnecessarily, but to ensure that where decisions are required, they are informed, evidence based and aligned with the long term interests of the club and its members.

About The Author 

Philip Atkinson is a chartered town planner and a highly experienced strategic planning professional. Atkinson currently holds the role of Director of Strategic Planning at Custodian Golf since April 2023.

Prior to this, Atkinson held various leadership positions and senior roles working for various planning consultancies, construction and mining companies in the UK and Asia. Atkinson is a keen golfer and a member of Hunstanton Golf Club.

For more information about Custodian Golf, please visit https://www.custodiangolf.co.uk/.