Market Harborough Golf Club

MHGC and the Environment

Market Harborough Golf Club was one of the first clubs in the area to adopt a formal Environmental and Sustainability policy. Driven by a group of volunteer members, we formulated a multi strand action plan back in 2018 and quickly obtained policy approval from the club’s Board of directors. This policy and action plan covers Water Use, Energy Use, Waste and Recycling, Chemical Use, Purchasing Policies, Education and Training and finally Wildlife and Nature. The policy was prepared after consultation with many groups and organisations including English Nature, Leicestershire Wildlife Trust, the Hawk and Owl Trust, our energy providers, the Local Authority, our local Drainage Authority and several other local interest groups.

Such was the success of the group’s work that in January 2020 we were honoured to win the R&A/STRI Home Union National Golf Environment Award and be presented with the trophy at a high profile awards ceremony in Harrogate in February of that year. As recently as February 2023 our work has again been recognised by England Golf with a further nomination for a national sustainability award.

The thrust of our work has always been to ensure that our activities do not in any way prejudice the ongoing ability of our club to develop and maintain the best possible golf course and golfing facility. However where there are opportunities to work with our greens and facilities teams to move towards a greater level of sustainability and environmental enhancement then this is what we endeavour to do. In doing so we do not draw on any club funds, our work is totally funded by donations and sponsorship.

Off course we have been involved in projects that include water and power managements, recycling, sustainable packaging, flood alleviation, and the reduction of single use plastic usage. On course we have undertaken detailed species surveys, installed bat and bird boxes, established hibernation pods, built two substantial “dead hedges”, planted over 2,000 plus bulbs, developed mowing regimes and in addition to this we are also establishing several single species and multi species wildflower areas. During 2022 we seeded and planted on hundreds of plants including an ambitious sweep of foxgloves amongst one of our coniferous woods. Our aim here is not to make the course look pretty but rather more importantly, to develop a far wider degree of biodiversity.

In recent years our work has attracted the attention of many other clubs in our region and working closely with the county golf union and England Golf we have been instrumental in establishing the “ Leicestershire and Rutland Greener Golf” organisation. This is a regional resource and information group which arranges site visits and conferences to spread environmental and sustainability news concerning all things relevant to golf clubs. To see the work with which this group is involved click here. We therefore pride ourselves at being one of the leading clubs in respect of environmental matters. Anyone joining our club can rest assured that whenever any significant management decisions are taken, the environmental impact will also be considered.

Should anyone want any more information or would be interested in joining our group please contact Jim Jacobs via jimjacobsplanner@gmail.com.

We would also like to express our thanks to those organisations below who have generously donated product to us.

Dobies

Rocket Gardens

Suttons Seeds

Chiltern Seeds

Yellow Flag Wild Flowers

Farmer Gracy Bulbs

Thompson and Morgan

MeadowMania

Eyebrook Wild Bird Feeds

Kingsdown Nurseries