An appeal lodged by the National Trust against the building of a golf resort a little more than a mile away from the spectacular 40,000 basalt pillars of Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim was rejected last week.
The Unesco World Heritage site is Northern Ireland’s most popular visitor attraction and the Trust has been responsible for its management since 1961. Last year, it opened a new visitor centre at the site, at a cost of £18.5 million.
In its appeal at Belfast’s High Court, the Trust argued that while Stormont had granted permission for the new £100 million golf resort in February 2012, the brainchild of Dr Alistair Hanna, a County Antrim native who now lives in the US, it should first have consulted Unesco.
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This argument was dismissed at the court hearing where lawyers acting for the golf project claimed the Trust’s opposition was based on commercial considerations, ie it feared that golf will draw business away from its Giant’s Causeway site.
This seems highly unlikely and the Trust was criticised following the appeal for displaying such commercial naivety, although it is understood to be considering an appeal against the High Court’s decision.
The development at Runkerry has been the subject of one of Northern Ireland’s longest-running planning disputes.
The resort, to be known as Bushmills Dunes Golf Resort and Spa, is based on a 365-acre site and will ultimately comprise an 18-hole golf course, a 120-bedroom hotel and 70 golf lodges. It is estimated that when built, it will provide permanent employment for several hundred people.
The project has drawn understandable comparisons with Donald Trump’s £750 million golf resort and hotel development on the north Aberdeenshire coast, another subject to a bitter planning dispute which resulted in one man, Michael Forbes, becoming a local hero when he refused to sell his land to the American businessman.
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This has not prevented ‘The Donald’ submitting a new application for a second golf course just four weeks ago.
In these straightened times, one wonders why billionaires are prepared to contend with the criticism and condemnation that invariably accompanies their application to build new golf resorts when so many existing courses are up for sale and participation in the game is falling.
According to a report published last year by accountants KPMG, the 3,000 golf clubs scattered across the 海角视频 and Ireland lost almost 43,000 members in 2011 as subscriptions were not renewed, or else amateur hackers gave up the game altogether in favour of other, cheaper, outdoor pursuits.
Nonetheless, there are still more than 1.3 million active golfers, a sizeable number of whom have never joined a club.
“Golf participation was always likely to fall during a prolonged recession,” claims Jamie Davidson, head of golf consultancy at Apex Sports.
“Golf club members are not immune to economic reality. Nowadays, almost everyone within the ‘squeezed middle’ is feeling the pinch.
“Subscription income has fallen markedly at many golf clubs as former members either abandon annual membership altogether in favour of playing on an intermittent basis, or else find clubs where playing more frequently is less expensive.
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"Naturally, this has a knock-on effect on clubhouse sales, as well as the sale of equipment and golf attire in the pro shop. This downward-spiralling development began with the US housing slump from 2006 onwards.
"Only recently have matters started to improve.”
The 海角视频 and European market has traditionally differed from the US in this respect, ie linking permanent housing developments with golf course construction.
For more than two decades, such developments were de rigueur across Florida, for example, as developers recognised that the addition of 150-odd acres of green space created not only greater aesthetic appeal but added a premium to the homes they were selling.
By early 2007, almost 70 per cent of new Floridian housing developments were linked to a golf course.
Last year, that figure had fallen to less than five per cent.
Yet this doesn’t explain why Messrs Trump and Hanna are willing to put up with opprobrium of vocal, well-organised pressure groups when they could buy half-a-dozen well-known courses (not all are actively marketed) for less than £100 million.
In many respects, Trump’s market is not the Sunday morning hacker who changes into his golf shoes in the car park and races to the first tee while zipping up his waterproofs.
The guys who turn up for the Saturday medal and a beer afterwards are not interested in spending a small fortune on a marquee course, although according to Jamie Davidson, “they will do so on an annual golf tour when a group get together for their yearly jaunt to a different course or courses.
“At this juncture, cost is not an issue,” he added.
But surely this requires year-round touring parties to visit Trump’s Aberdeenshire course and the proposed one at Bushmills Dunes?
Mr Davidson believes that while such income is “useful”, it’s not the pivotal commercial factor upon which hugely expensive courses in this country and abroad are based.
“Most newly-constructed courses, particularly in countries such as Russia, China and elsewhere in the Far East are built to accommodate the super-rich,” says Mr Davidson, adding, “people completely unaffected by the recession.”
This view is echoed by Chris Weafer, a strategist at Moscow’s Uralsib bank who keeps a close eye on how Russia’s oligarchs spend their wealth.
“Only the super-rich can afford golf courses,” he says.
Chelsea’s owner, Roman Abramovich, is building a course on the outskirts of Moscow, while another Russian, Oleg Deripaska, described as a ‘metals tycoon’, has constructed a Jack Nicklaus-designed championship course in Moscow where the initial membership fee is a cool £185,000.
Moreover, the club is believed to be “extremely picky” about who it allows to join.
In the Indonesian capital Jakarta, phenomenally expensive golf courses are fully booked throughout the year as a combination of rich locals and well-heeled visitors (numbers were up by 30 per cent last year) arrive to play golf on well-manicured courses.
“If a billionaire wanted to acquire one of Britain’s famous, well-established courses, the likelihood is he could,” muses Jamie Davidson.
“But developers such as Trump and Hanna are targeting members prepared to spend a fortune on subscriptions and who demand a little more than a welcoming nod from the captain upon arrival.
“Demand among the super-rich for features such as valet parking, a pre-match massage, knowledgeable caddies and the most luxurious surrounds imaginable is high.
“Hanna and Trump recognise this, hence their respective golf developments are likely to be enormously successful.”
Is what might be called golf’s ‘natural constituency’ evaporating and disappearing up-market?
“I doubt that,” claims Jamie Davidson. “There’ll always be plenty of places for the Sunday hacker to play – but it’s unlikely to be at courses like Bushmills Dunes.”