Why building on the golf course doesn’t fit with our climate strategy

Around half the 53 hectare (131-acre) area occupied by Maidenhead Golf Course is wooded, locking up over 10,000 tonnes of carbon and providing a green lung for the people of Maidenhead.

As the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead (RBWM) has identified in its own Environment & Climate strategy,¹ ‘the quality of life and the role of the natural environment in creating great places is a critical part of the success of the borough economy, and to our residents’ health and wellbeing’ (p.8).  This is wholly inconsistent with our council’s plans to concrete over green belt parkland in our town centre.

Here are five key areas of the climate strategy at odds with this planned destruction of greenspace:

1. Biodiversity

The climate plan says the borough wants to ‘tackle biodiversity loss’ (p.26) and ‘wildlife and ecosystems provide essential services on which we all depend; clean air and water, crop production through soil formation and pollination services, pest control, essential human health services and climate regulation’ (p.8).  The golf course is rich in wildlife habitat and biodiversity including protected species like slow worms, hedgehogs, bats, badgers and red kites.  There are also owls, roe deer, foxes, woodpeckers, woodland birds, butterflies, bees, bumblebees, stag beetles, toads, grass snakes, moths and funghi.  Only by maintaining this whole area as parkland, will this biodiversity survive.

2. The Natural Environment

One of the climate strategy’s key objectives is to ‘protect and enhance our natural environment, green our towns and urban areas’ (p.23).  A healthy natural environment helps to protect the ecosystems we all depend on, as well as creating great places for recreation, health and wellbeing.  It’s vital that we stop building on our greenspaces now, and focus necessary development on brownfield sites.

3. Reducing Emissions

The borough has stated it is committed ‘to achieve a target of net zero carbon emissions in the borough by 2050, in line with the Government policy’ (p.3). Net zero can only be achieved by a combination of emissions reduction and emissions removal.  Unless expensive carbon removal directly from the atmosphere is being considered, for the borough to increase emissions removal, every bit of land will need to be managed effectively. ‘It is estimated restoring the UK’s habitats could absorb a third of UK emissions’ (p.26). The borough needs to protect existing trees and grasslands, including the land currently leased to Maidenhead Golf Club.  We also need to plan many more trees, and the golf course land offers plenty of opportunities to do so. 

4. Air Quality

The climate plan states ‘improved air quality’ will be one of the benefits of taking action to reduce emission (p.11).  Air quality can be improved by avoiding overdevelopment and retaining green spaces in the borough, like the green belt land occupied by Maidenhead Golf Club. There should also be a transition to electric vehicles, and reducing the number of cars.

5. Water Supply

According to the climate strategy, ‘the Thames Valley region is classed as seriously water stressed’ (p.10).  At the same time, we also face an ‘increased risk to the built environment including people’s homes and businesses’ (p.10).  Greenspace helps us to manage water supply, by absorbing rainfall.  There should be less development of any kind in our overdeveloped Thames Valley region.  House building and some economic activity should be moved away from the south east as part of the national levelling up policy, and brownfield sites should be the focus for development.

In summary, the golf course land must be recognized of value to the people of our Borough as a space for biodiversity, carbon sequestering, nature, tree planting and recreation.  If we are serious about protecting our environment, and tackling the worst effects on climate change on our community, we must place the correct value on our greenspace now.

If you’d like to support our campaign, please do write to the leader of our council andrew.johnson@rbwm.gov.uk to explain why the protection of this greenspace is important to you and our community.

¹‘Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Environment and Climate Strategy 2020-2025’ https://www.rbwm.gov.uk/media/2288/download