Hong Kong Golf Club open to losing Fanling courses to housing, lawmaker says

The prospect of the city's most prestigious golf club being ploughed up for housing has moved a step closer, with a lawmaker saying its management had raised no objection to the idea at a recent meeting.

Secretary for Development Paul Chan Mo-po said on Friday there was scope for reviewing the use of the 170 hectares of land at Fanling occupied by the Hong Kong Golf Club, the host since 1959 of Asia's oldest professional golf tournament - the Hong Kong Open.

Yesterday Chan said Fanling Lodge - the summer residence of colonial governors and, since 1997, of chief executives - and adjoining golf club land could make way for housing.

The future of the club, with its three 18-hole courses, the oldest laid out in 1911, has been a bone of contention since the government unveiled plans to build new towns called Fanling North and Kwu Tung North on 333 hectares of land.

Environmental group Green Sense has suggested using the golf club land for housing instead of taking farmland and demolishing village homes to build the new towns.

And on Thursday villagers in the northeastern New Territories, whose fields and homes in the area are also under threat of eventually being taken for housing, threatened to occupy the golf club unless the government scrapped its plans.