Barking & Dagenham approves plans for 100% affordable homes at Crowlands Heath Golf Course

Plans to replace Crowlands Heath Golf Course with 1,298 flats have been approved by Barking and Dagenham council. A proportion of the site sits with Havering Council which has yet to consider the plans.

 

With the golf club’s membership dwindling in recent years, the owners, Barking and Dagenham Council, agreed to sell the course to Homes4Life in March 2026 – provided they could obtain planning permission.

 

The plans for this 23-acre site include 1,298 flats – 100% affordable, 60% social rent and 40% for key workers, including 431 family homes – alongside 1,016sq.m. of community and retail space, a multi-use games area, padel courts, biodiversity enhancements and key infrastructure improvements.

 

The masterplan is set to be landscape-led with the edge of the site featuring a green route for leisure and cycling as well as the previously private green space opened up for public use and parks. 

 

Currently, the site functions as a nine-hole semi-private golf course with driving range that’s becoming increasing unsustainable financially. 

 

Significant development has been undertaken around the Wood Lane site location in recent years with the golf course left as one of the few green areas. 

 

Assael Architecture submitted revised plans in July 2026 after an initial design by RCKa in 2023. RCKa founder Russell Curtis is known for his advocacy on London’s golf courses, calling on them to be repurposed as sites for housing, as published in RCKa’s Holes for Homes principles.

 

London has 95 golf courses, covering an area larger than all of Brent. Approximately 40% of courses are owned by councils. RCKa estimates the sites could be redeveloped into approximately 300,000 homes.

 

Be First Regeneration Limited, the council’s property development arm, says the Crowlands project would “deliver several key benefits, including 100 per cent affordable housing”.