Greens and Sustainability

Our Local Environment

York Golf Club has embraced the need to protect the local ecology and to ensure that sustainable course management practices are adhered to at all times.

Our course is surrounded by a designated SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest), recognised by conservation organisations as one of the most important such sites in the UK and Europe. Its flora and fauna are well documented by academic experts. The specific local habitat is home to several very rare species of plants and insects, so it is vital that we achieve the right balance between soils, water, vegetation and the needs of local wildlife in our active day-to-day management of the course, to help ensure that local biodiversity is maintained.

A number of course management practices constantly contribute to our balanced approach to delivering a sustainable course through careful habitat management, including:

• A programme of restoring the lowland heath characteristics of the course, which has been developed and promoted through discussion with local and national experts.
• The establishment in strategic areas of some 45,000 new heather plug plants grown from seed taken from the course.
• New gorse bushes planted onto the course to enhance the lowland heath features.
• Tree management schemes which have been implemented, to remove old diseased trees and replace them with newly-planted species typical of the local habitat.
• The removal of dense undergrowth, to encourage native plants and wildlife to flourish.
• The planting of indigenous grasses such as 100% fescues on the course.
• Installing Bird Boxes of all shapes and sizes around our tree-lined course to encourage specific bird species found locally.
• Logs from felled trees left in piles as “bug hotels” around the course to promote insect numbers.
• Ponds created on the course to assist drainage and promote aquatic wildlife - a feature of the local SSSI.