![]() ![]() ![]() So when Guy agreed to talk to me for this column, first off, I was delighted that it gave me a chance to revisit the book, and to be astounded once more by some of the details regarding land ownership in England which are, at times, so outlandish, that you have to read the sentence again just to make sure you’ve got it right. I read Guy’s book when it was first published in 2019, and was astounded by what I learnt – not just by the scale of inequality in land ownership in England, but the extent to which the picture has remained scarily similar since William the Conqueror portioned off these newly-won isles to his friends nearly a thousand years ago. I say almost, for this is exactly what Guy Shrubsole, author of the book ‘Who Owns England’, has been trying to do for several years. ![]() That’s far less than one percent of the country, who are in possession of millions of acres of farmland, upland, peatland, forest (what little of it we have), parks, and every other type of land you can think of, from London mansions to our shorelines.ĭespite this relatively small number of landowners, the question of who owns England is almost impossible to answer, due to the secrecy of ownership and the difficulty and cost of using the Land Registry. 25,000 people own half of the land in England. ![]()
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