Who owns the land?

On the 18^th of June, this petition,  signed by some 25,000 people was presented to the House of Lords at the start of their debating this 'Infrastructure' Bill. It is still well worth signing it.

Threats to our land came to the local Green Party’s attention via Hands Off Our Forest (HOOF) which is a pressure group dedicated to keeping the Forest of Dean and other public woodlands in public ownership, set up after the previous government attempt to sell our land. It seems that this government has ignored all previous public outcry against the attempt previously to privatise the land that belongs to all of us. Now, they are attempting again to give away of our countryside, but this time by the back door.

The 2nd Reading, a Debate, was in the House of Lords on the 18^th June 18, where as far as I can tell, nothing definitive happened. This is still the start of a process and there is scope to stop the worst aspects of this bill. http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2014/june/lords-infrastructure-bill/

The following information is all taken from what we’ve heard from HOOF – edited in places for brevity and because we’re now after the second reading... This is not the work of a legal expert, but it’s all we have at the moment.

HOOF say:

' Action  is  needed  now  to  halt  proposed  legislation  which  would  allow  all  public  land  In  England  &  Wales  to  be  privatised.

At our (HOOF's) meeting this week, we decided we must press for an exemption for the Public Forest Estate (that is, all those woodlands in England that are owned by all of us, and managed by the Forestry Commission) within the Infrastructure Bill...

You may recall that we kicked up quite a fuss in 2010/11 over plans for the forest sell-off, and the law which would have made it possible, the Public Bodies Bill.   Our campaign, in association with others around the country and national efforts has transcended politics, class and many, many interests because our public woodlands mean so much to so many people (40 million visit them in England every year) ...this Bill is a massive juggernaut and could hit us before we've had a chance to take evasive action. It affects ANY public land and all private land except that owned by the Queen and Royal family.

The Queen's Speech announcing the Infrastructure Bill was on June 2, it was introduced to the House of Lords three days later, and got its second reading (and first debate) June 18. The Bill is designed to fulfil many functions, so many that it's easy to only concentrate on that hot potato, fracking, and possibly also the HS2 railway line  -  but the Bill enables far more than that.

There is also the issue of the need to build more houses.  However, is it right that all these developments should take place on the precious little public land there is?  Isn't it our land, the people's, and shouldn't we have a say in what happens to it?  As about three-quarters of the acreage of Britain belongs to 0.6% of the population (see Kevin Cahill's Who Owns Britain?), can't they spare any of their land to be built on?

What the Bill proposes is that the Secretary of State can hand over any amount of public land to the arms-length, non-departmental Government body, the Homes & Communities Agency.  The HCA can then dispose of it to developers.  There will be no need to go through local authority planning processes  -  the Secretary of State can give the green light without any local politicians or planners' involvement,  just by consulting a panel of two people.

As for public rights of way, the proposed law allows any of them to be extinguished.  There is no need for permission for easements (i.e. roads, power-lines, railways. drilling, tunnels, etc).  And any existing laws that protect land and prevent its being built on, appear to be over-ridden by one simple enabling clause (quoted from the Bill, see http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2014-2015/0002/lbill_2014-20150002_en_7.htm#sch3):

"SCHEDULE 3 Transfer schemes...
2 (1) The property, rights and liabilities that may be transferred by a scheme include—
(a) property, rights and liabilities that would not otherwise be capable
of being transferred or assigned;"

So, while the Public Bodies Bill came to the attention of forest campaigners because it specifically mentioned the Forestry Commission and forests and proposed changes to the Forestry Act 1967, for the Infrastructure Bill there is no need to list this act or others (such as Rights of Way and other protections for other pieces of land), because in one fell swoop, it enables every statute to be ignored and over-ridden!
The Government briefing (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/infrastructure-bill) on this aspect of the Bill states:

Public sector land assets
The bill would permit land to be transferred directly from arms-length bodies to the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). This would reduce bureaucracy, manage land more effectively, and get more homes built.

The bill would make sure that future purchasers of land owned by HCA and the Greater London Authority (GLA) will be able to develop and use land without being affected by easements and other rights and restrictions suspended by the agency. Sometimes land owned by HCA and GLA has easements or rights and restrictions from its previous use. At the moment HCA and the GLA can suspend these, but not pass that suspension on. The bill would make sure that purchasers of this land would also benefit from the suspension.

Land Registry
The bill would also allow Land Registry to take on statutory responsibility for the Local Land Charges register and an extension of powers would also allow Land Registry to play a wider role in the property market. Consultation on these measures took place between January and March 2014...
You may be aware there is already a campaign against the privatisation of the Land Registry. Not only will it be privatised, the newly-private entity will have extra powers over who owns what land!
So in summary... WE ALL NEED TO GET ENGAGED WITH THIS AND WITHOUT DELAY!

Please consider writing to your MP, and sign the petition. Also have a look at  www.handsoffourforest.org

Green Party leader to join badger patrols this Saturday

While we've had Brian May out in Gloucestershire, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett will be visiting the North Somerset badger cull zone this weekend and joining badger patrols as they carry out a nocturnal vigil on Saturday evening.

Ms Bennett’s expression of solidarity with anti-cull protesters comes in the wake of Green Party members voting overwhelmingly in favour of an immediate end to the badger cull pilots currently taking place in Somerset and Gloucester. A motion, passed at the Party’s recent conference in Brighton, reaffirmed the Green Party position that the culls are unscientific, unethical and will cause great suffering.

A key aim of the pilot cull was to assess the humaneness of free shooting but Greens claim the methods being used to assess humaneness are completely inadequate and unscientific. In particular they point to an admission by the Government's Chief Veterinary Officer that 'there are no definitive criteria for determining humaneness'. This, say the Greens, undermines the whole project.

Here's a blog from a Somerset councillor which really digs into the problematic technical details around the cull - http://mikerigby.org/2013/09/27/badger-cull-2-update/#

Another Gloucestershire Green, Forest of Dean Green Party member Sid Phelps has been involved in wounded badger patrols in the Forest of Dean. He said:

"The government target is to shoot 5,000 of the estimated 7,200 badgers in the two trial cull areas, killing over 70% of the badger population! Along with over 300 others I have been out on regular patrols looking for dead and wounded badgers. Fortunately we've not found many so it’s clear this ill-conceived plan is not really working. Exterminating badgers is simply not the way to successfully eradicate this dreadful disease."

As we've commented before, there are real animal welfare issues for cows infected with TB, and real livelihood issues for farmers whose herds are struck. The badger cull is not going to help with this. It is not a viable answer to animal or human suffering. We need to deliver a solution based on the best research available, for the good of all.

 

What has the European Union ever done for us?

Below is a letter by Sid Phelps of the Forest of Dean Green party, which is such a splendid mix of wit and wisdom that I felt it needed sharing here.

 

Letter

Last week’s letter from the UK Independence Party reminded me of Monty Python’s Life of Brian sketch where Reg the Briton asks the prosaic question: What have the Romans ever done for us?

Well, what has EU membership ever done for us? Well if you discount peace between member states for the last fifty years then there’s legislation that protects our environment; landfill, wildlife, habitats, water-quality, air quality, reduction of climate change gases  etc; and there’s workers’ rights - ensuring paid holidays, health & Safety protection at work, equal treatment for part-time workers & women and protection when businesses are sold.

But don’t listen to the Greens or the Left. Even in a recent CBI survey, 8 out of 10 firms believe we have a better future within Europe than out of it.*

Admittedly, not everything about the EU is perfect – bureaucracy, inefficiency and accountability being major problems; but as we go into the campaign for the European elections next May, let’s think about whether or not we are, like Reg the Briton – glossing over the major achievements over the last 40 years of the EU just because a minority of us simply don’t like Europe.

* http://www.cbi.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2013/09/8-out-of-10-firms-say-uk-must-stay-in-eu-cbi-yougov-survey/

 

 

 

If you want to see those positive aspects of the EU supported, Molly Scott Cato is the local Green candidate for European election in 2014.