selling our land an' everyfin'

[james armstrong]

Since Nov 2005 the government has presided over the sell off of Britain. Because of the weakening pound to-day you get 91p  for your euro. Then you got only 68p.

Academic? Not really.  Now the exchange rate makes 31 per cent more attractive to Europeans to buy land in UK.

This increasinbg demand  probably accounts for the rise and rtise of  farm prices.

Another factor is that individual owners of qualifying UK farm land (from whichever corner of the world they come) get paid from the rural payments agency sums running up to over £1million.

Another factor is that the payments increase in pound value as the pound exchange rate falls.

There is no logic in people on  low wages paying capital rich and absent land owners (many of whom never drive a tractor) some of which are  investment companies, Cambridge and Oxford colleges, church commissioners and public schools founded four hundred years ago.

Its the modern equivalent of tithes only more subtle, since it is hushed up and the government does ht dirty work of dipping our pockets.

These payments take up some 40 per cent of the EU budget- the biggest single activity of the  EU.

India used to have a policy of forbidding non residents to buy land there.

Rising land prices are a major factor in rising house prices.

A  further inequity is the deveopment gain which land owners pocket when the y receive planning permission for houses.

Office of Fair Trading has  discovered that self build is th larg3st supplier of new houses.

Who i sbuilding them?  Finding  theland to build on is perhaps the biggest difficulty for potential self builders.  A working assumption is that farmers are among the biggest

group gaining from self build.  They have access to land (especially in htcurtelage of farm houses, they can claim an agricultural need for which there is a special provision for geting planning premission, and very many agricultural buildings (barns) have been and are being converted into dwellings.

Addressing the land issue is needed to solve many other problems. 

Publicisiing the inequity of rewarding bulk landowners from jo public's`pocket is a first step.    

James.

 

 

    
 		 	   		  
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