Introduction
In the week that the ConDem Government have decided to withdraw from the management of England's forests and ancient woodlands it seems an apposite time to consider 'who owns the land' of the UK.
Defra knows who owns what because you get no subsidy if you can't demonstrate some rights of ownership, but it's not data that's shared with the public.
Some things all citizens should know
90% of us live on less than 10% of the land, which might explain the stupid price people pay for a home. The myriad restrictions placed on green site development also play a major part in house price inflation.
Britain’s 16.8 million homeowners account for barely 4 per cent of the land, about the same as was owned by the Forestry Commission, until Blair's spivs started the sell off. The FC now manages about 1%.
The Land Registry, in existence since 1925, has managed to register only half of the UK's 60 million acres, 30 million acres seem to have disappeared. The Land Registry is hoping to persuade the owners of the unregistered half of Britain to own up by 2012 — its target date for full registration.
A second 'Domesday Book’ report was submitted to Parliament in 1876. Investigating land ownership, author, Kevin Cahill, asked the Royal Agricultural Society if they had a copy, they denied all knowledge. Next, Cahill approached The Country Landowners Association, they acknowledged owning a copy but said get lost. Might have had something to do with the fact that the 30,000 members of the CLA own 50% of the rural land in Britain.
The report, entitled The Return of Owners of Land, contains the names, addresses, acreages and valuations for all landowners of over one acre.
It also showed a complete absence of State or corporate ownership. Seven of the 11 largest landowners in modern Britain did not exist 100 years ago, and all, such as the National Trust, are corporate estates. The key change is from family estates into corporate estates.
The document disappeared from the public's gaze for a 126 years, until the canny Cahill published its details.
Land owners are an unhelpful lot
Clearly, the landed gentry of 1876 were not happy for their land holdings to be public knowledge and they still don't. For instance, everyone knows that the Duke of Westminster (aka Hugh Grosvenor) owns a large slice of Mayfair and Belgravia and half of England and Scotland but only the Grosvenor Group knows how much land he owns. Cunning Hugh is now a corporate, with a property portfolio spanning the globe.
The Duke of Wellington: back in 1872, is registered as owning 15,800 acres. Today the Land Registry has no record of his holding. The BBC asked the current duke how much land he owned. He declined to tell.