Australian family office to build 3,000 homes on UK golf courses

Business Times

13-05-2025

[LONDON] One of Australia's richest family offices is drawing up plans to build more than £1 billion (S$1.7 billion) worth of housing on land surrounding its UK golf courses, in one of the first major tests of the British government's push to develop the nation's green belt and turbocharge the economy.
Bangarra Group has appointed investment firm Fairway Capital to review its Crown Golf portfolio of eight courses spanning about 1,500 acres of greenfield and grey belt land across London and southern England, according to a statement seen by Bloomberg News. The aim is to build 3,000 homes, about a third of which will be classed as affordable.
The proposed project comes on the back of a slew of planning changes announced last year by the Labour government to help address a housing shortage as part of Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves's plans to stimulate growth.
While policymakers say they want to make it easier to build on 'poor quality' green belt land known as the grey belt, including old car parks and disused wasteland, they have also imposed stringent affordable housing requirements – a move that's drawn criticism from some developers.
Chancellor Reeves 'underscored in her budget speech the critical importance of strong and consistent economic growth', said Jeff Chapman, founder of Bangarra. 'In today's volatile trade environment, property remains a steadfast asset – unshackled by tariffs or transient policies.'
The Australian group's plan is now set to test the viability of the affordable housing rules. The government has told developers that applications approved on the grey belt should deliver at least 15 per cent more affordable homes than in the local housing policy. In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan last week announced that City Hall will actively release parts of the capital's green belt for housebuilding, in a way that maximises the level of affordable homes.
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But critics say the government's drive for more affordable housing may be too ambitious considering it relies heavily on social housing providers who are nearing borrowing limits and are unable to raise equity. About 80 per cent of developers are struggling to find buyers for their affordable units, given many housing associations have scaled back development programmes due to cost pressures, according to a Knight Frank survey published in February.
'These reforms will take at least two years to start bearing fruit,' said Bob Weston, chairman of Weston Homes. 'To rely on planning policy and legislative changes alone to achieve the government's target of 1.5 million homes within the next five years will not accelerate home building now.'
The Office for Budget Responsibility said in March it expects to see 1.3 million more homes by the end of the decade, after upgrading its forecasts and giving a rare endorsement to the economic potential of the reforms.
However, the government is likely to fall about 25 per cent short of the 300,000 homes it needs this year to meet its target of 1.5 million homes over five years as planning changes take time to increase housing delivery, Bloomberg News reported in March.
Still, the Bangarra programme – likely to take about six years to complete – had become possible through a 'new openness to appropriate greenfield sites', Fairway said. As at Mar 31, 2024, the Bangarra Group had US$13 billion of assets under management, according to its website.
The portfolio – which will see the sports facilities retained – includes the St Mellion Estate in Cornwall, where golfing icons Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson once played.
'Efforts to re-purpose the land holdings for housing had been hindered by restrictive planning policies and a reluctance to develop greenfield or rural land,' said George Brooksbank, chief executive officer at Fairway Capital. 'Grey belt and greenfield sites offer a faster, more viable alternative to complex brownfield projects.' BLOOMBERG