Community Access
Access plans are an important aspect of the overall sustainability of a golf development. As large spaces, often close to population centres, golf developments interface directly with local people. Given that social equity, justice and integration are important pillars of sustainability, golf developments that unnecessarily or deliberately disenfranchise people cannot be deemed sustainable.
On the Ground: Mainzer Golf Club, Rhineland, Germany.
Designed by Städler Golf Courses (Christoph Städler and Achim Reinmuth).
Golf developments can overcome this risk by ensuring that existing and potential rights of way and traditional access routes are protected, and wherever possible, enhanced. Safety dictates that access should probably not lead to non-golfers wandering over the course, but most golf developments have non-golfing areas and boundary areas that can accommodate walking, cycling and horse-riding paths.
Creative access planning can be a major success story for golf developments — demonstrating an understanding of and accommodation to local people's needs and aspirations. By contrast, golf developments that seek to excessively restrict access to and over land are likely to be seen as excluding and exclusive in a negative sense.
