After the scandal of Andrew, the royals owe us transparency about their finances

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/king-charles-andrew-mountbatten-windsor-royal-family-crisis-duty-empathy-b2924890.html

https://archive.is/hfQ7w

They have the use of 50 residences on estates totalling 250,000 acres and a life of wealth and privilege paid for by the public purse, yet much of their financial lives are shrouded in secrecy. The time has come to open up the books, writes Chris Blackhurst

Saturday 21 February 2026 06:00 GMT

Life will never be the same again for Britain�s royal family. The Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor scandal has rocked the institution to the core. Rather like the banking crisis of 2008, when the authorities were desperate to avoid contagion dragging down other banks, they are keen to prevent the spread.

For a body that likes to remain discreet and private, this is a transforming, unnerving prospect. Andrew�s troubles have shone an unwelcome light on not only his, but all of their living and financial arrangements. It�s not that the other royals have anything particular to hide � we don�t know � but rather that so much has hitherto been off limits. To release all the detail, to suddenly go from nothing to everything, as they might well be required to, is bound to provoke shock and anger.

This is a family, or �firm�, that likes to control how it�s presented. While this was once justified on the grounds that to let the light in somehow destroys the mystique, those days have well and truly passed. It is hard to see how those guard rails can be preserved when the deference has diminished, and MPs and media are champing at the bit. Even David Dimbleby (David Dimbleby!) has dared to front a documentary that asks, pointedly: What�s the Monarchy for?

The National Audit Office is currently investigating Andrew�s use of his former home at Royal Lodge, and its report will be sent to the Commons public accounts committee. Its findings will be published and there will be public hearings.

That is just for starters. The probe is not likely to stop there. This is an issue that is not going to vanish. A public struggling with an ever-rising cost-of-living burden, tax increases and a chronic housing shortage will demand answers, not just about Andrew, but about the wider family. They will not be receptive to obfuscation. The genie has been released from the bottle. There can be no going back.

A detailed report last year from the anti-monarchy group Republic put the bill for the royal family�s upkeep at more than �500m annually. A substantial portion is derived from the sovereign grant. It comprises profits from the crown estate�s �15bn property portfolio, which covers a large area of London�s St James�s and locations dotted around Britain. Now, people want to know how those revenues are arrived at. Are rents properly and fairly calculated? Do some tenants enjoy more favourable terms than others?

These are questions, and there are many, many others, that will require answers. Transparency is the order of the day. Tellingly, given Republic’s ideological antecedents, their study was not challenged by the royal household or its supporters. It prompted Norman Baker, the former Lib Dem MP, to ask in a new book, Royal Mint, National Debt ‘ The Shocking Truth About the Royal Family’s Finances, to highlight that the bill for maintaining the UK royal family ‘is undoubtedly much higher than that of any other European monarchy’.

He contrasts them with other royal families. In the Netherlands, the heir to the Dutch throne, Princess Catharina-Amalia, announced when she was 18 that she would renounce her �300,000 annual income while she was a student and forfeit �1.6m in expenses; in Sweden, the king removed royal titles from five of his grandchildren; in Denmark, the queen took them away from four of her grandchildren, saying it was ‘for their own good’, while in Copenhagen, Crown Prince Frederik and his wife, Princess Mary, ferry their young children to state school by cargo bike. Writes Baker: ‘You can never imagine this normality, that informality, with the British royal family.’

Here, our equivalents have the use of 50 residences, estates totalling 250,000 acres – among them the well known like Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Windsor Castle, Clarence House, St James’s Palace, Balmoral, Sandringham, Holyrood, Gatcombe Park, Highgrove, Royal Lodge, Bagshot Park and Thatched House Lodge, but also other Palladian houses and farms.

Included in the royal collection, too, are the ‘grace-and-favour’ apartments for servants and former staff and anyone else the King wants to put up. At the last public estimate, there were 272 of those alone. But that figure is cautionary. Because we simply do not know.

Taking the royal family forward is Prince William. PR-savvy and closely in tune with the zeitgeist, William and his wife, Catherine, are not afraid to use the media when it suits them to publicly voice their concerns and share personal information. But, thanks to Andrew, they, too, are in a bind. While William has indicated his desire for a slimmed-down monarchy, presumably akin to those Scandi models, he runs the risk of splitting his own family, of casting some relations into the wilderness, reducing them to commoners.

Ejection brings with it the threat of a royal turning rogue. William and Catherine have endured that with Harry and Meghan; this could spark a repeat � or repeats � and heap even more damage on the institution.

Prior to the latest escalation of the Andrew scandal, William kept his tax affairs secret, unlike the King. When the King was heir to the throne, his office outlined the figure that Charles had voluntarily paid in tax. But for the last two years, William has refused to reveal his own figure. The Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, which are now his personal property, will not say what William pays in tax on the surplus profits he receives from the sprawling estates spread across many English counties.

While the latest Duchy of Cornwall accounts showed the estate made a profit of £22.9m in its last financial year, William cannot be made to disclose how much tax he pays – unlike other bodies, the royal household is not subject to the same Freedom of Information Act regulations. All his private secretary has said is that ‘the Prince of Wales pays the highest rate of income tax’. But we do not know.

Similarly, the crown estate is keen to stress that William and Kate are paying ‘market rent’ on Forest Lodge, their new ‘forever’ home. Independent valuers from Hamptons and Savills estate agents were appointed to value the property, and the couple received independent legal and property advice, as did the crown estate.

These bland explanations may satisfy some, but there will be vocal critics for whom they will not suffice. Andrew’s troubles have ensured there are more of them than ever before, and this time, their concerns cannot simply be dismissed.

A period of painful disclosure lies ahead.

Nice to see the new edition of The Land magazine but nowt about a chilling test case in Bristol, which other councils are hoping to run out across the country…

The City Council’s Exclusion Order is aimed at The Downs, land owned by Bristol’s archaic Edward Colston slave trading society, the Merchant Venturers. They are now mostly corporate lawyers and are also using their legal expertise to charge all regular sports activities on The Downs, such as frisbee groups, £2,600 for the use of the this 400 acre open space. It seems a silent cry has gone out from the Merchants, echoed at City Hall, for all Bristol’s public land to be monetised.

But it’s not just the housing crisis which led to over 150 vehicles staying on The Downs last year. The reason was that, since Covid, the council have been pursuing a systematic programme of traveller evictions from all the city’s biggest traveller sites on unused land, forcing hundreds out from self-managed sites onto the streets.

Bristol’s Merchant Venturers documentary HTV West Eye View (1995) Cabot Colston Mafia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVAq1YRK0RI

We are the ones to protect the Downs say Merchant Venturers

The Society of Merchant Venturers have defended the status quo, pointing out that most of it is their land, and is only open to the public because of the 1861 Act.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/ones-protect-downs-say-merchant-9628982

Personal trainers could be charged £2,600 to use the Downs

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/personal-trainers-could-charged-2600-10634391

Social Cleansing by stealth with The Downs as ‘killing zone’

About 300 cara/vans on large off-road sites around the city (Gasworks, Lockleaze; Tramways in Brislington etc.) have been evicted over the last three years, leaving hundreds of travellers kerb-side. Those trying to ride out the housing crisis were thus ejected from traditional secure sites, by a council charged to house all its citizens, onto the streets.

Forced out of secure, self-managed sites, arson attacks and graffiti death-threats have now become almost a weekly occurrence at Bristol City Council’s hands.

These exact same sites are now being ‘reopened’ by Bristol City Council as steel-gated compounds or ‘Meanwhile Sites’. The sites each have one water standpipe and drain-hole and travellers are expected to pay £1,700 a year in rent to the council plus from April £2,000 Band A council tax too to live on a council CCTV surveilled, ID spot checked site, which van dwellers used to happily self-manage, and live on for free.

Much of the news coverage ignores the Green ‘Human Rights City’ Council’s blatant act of ‘social cleansing’ because the 500 or so who are being forced out of the city by the council flytipping enforcement team, have no money, and no legal representation.

The Spectator: A day with Bristol’s van dwellers

https://archive.is/PNV6h

Trial date set as Downs ‘van dwellers’ saga nears an end

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/trial-date-set-downs-van-10797139

About 45 vehicles remained parked on roads surrounding the park in north Bristol (down from 150 early in 2025)

Bristol City Council is set for a court showdown as it moves to permanently ban people living in vehicles from the roads around the Downs.

In November, the council said it would seek to move people on from the Downs after designating the group of vehicles there as a ‘high impact’ site, due to what the council said was evidence of people using the area as a toilet.

Nonetheless, about 45 vehicles remain parked on roads along the outside of the green space in leafy north Bristol. At its peak, the Downs ‘encampment’ consisted of about 150 vehicles.

Now, a trial date has been set where the council will apply to have vehicles permanently barred from the area.

Maths teacher claimed to be a naturist after pubgoers reported him walking naked in residential area

Long-awaited Odeon Cinema opens at Cabot Circus next week with £4 ticket offer

At the trial, on April 16, the council will apply for a possession order for the roads, allowing them to evict people living in vehicles there, and then an injunction to prevent them from returning have the vehicles still occupying roads along the perimeter of the Downs.

The court hearing will allow people on both sides of the debate to have their say; the council has until February 26 to publish a map detailing the proposed new exclusion zone, along with details of how people can take part in the court case.

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At a brief hearing outlining next steps in the long-running saga at Bristol Civil Justice Court on Thursday (February 5), the court heard from both critics and supporters of people living in vehicles.

Alan Jenkinson, appearing on behalf of Protect The Downs – a group of locals who have waged a long campaign against the so-called van dwellers – said he wanted the scope of the proposed injunction to be extended to include other roads in the area.

“We support the council’s application,” he said. “I would implore the court to extend the broad nature of the injunction to other roads.

“We know from our experience and we’ve got substantial evidence to prove the danger to the public of allowing inhabitations on the roads.

“(The vehicles pose a) real risk and threat to the community in the area.”

Although the council has repeatedly promised to engage with the people still living in vehicles in the area to better understand their circumstances, there is limited evidence to suggest they have done so.

Gerard Winstanley, from the Bristol Housing Action Movement group, said more needed to be done to make sure people living in vehicles in the area had their say on their future.

“We’ve had virtually no representation whatsoever from the people who are targeted by this exclusion order,” he said.

“There are roughly 45 vehicles in the area. As part of our submission, what I’d just ask is that there’s more deliberate publicity given to the times and dates that these orders are being sought so that people can at least find out what the council intends to do and when.”
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Mr Winstanley said BHAM would seek to be included as a party acting against the council in April’s trial.

The council will also apply to extend a separate injunction which currently bars people from parking on the grass itself. That injunction is due to expire on July 25.

Robin Denford, appearing on behalf of the council, said:“The injunction that has been granted already has worked extremely well,” citing the example of one trespasser who had been dealt with without any issues in January.

The Downs encampment represents a small percentage of the total number of vehicles being used as homes around Bristol, about 600 according to the council’s last estimate.

April’s trial is scheduled to last two days.

Residents link hands to protest plan for 20m structures at beauty spot

Radar plans may allow Trump to dominate space from Wales – say campaigners

There are major plans to build 27 radar dishes at Cawdor Barracks in Brawdy but residents are not happy

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/residents-link-hands-beach-protest-32219420

A large number of locals came together to link hands on a Pembrokeshire beach in a protest against plans for “huge” structures overlooking the coastline. There are plans to build 27 radar dishes at Cawdor Barracks in Brawdy to monitor satellites and other objects in space, something which many residents object to.

Residents attended the protest on Newgale Beach on Sunday, August 3, with the linked chain of people stretching from one side of the beach to the other.

Newgale sits underneath a hill which the dishes, which would be as tall as four London buses, part of the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) project to track satellites, could be erected on. They will be 68ft (21m) high and 49ft (15m) wide and will be situated close to the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/3933753110248943/

Locals established the PARC Against DARC pressure group last year when the plans were announced, creating a petition and lobbying politicians. The petition has gathered over 17,000 signatures and opposes the plans on health and environmental grounds. It says that DARC would “drive a wrecking ball through our tourism industry.” Defence Secretary John Healey last year said the proposed redevelopment of Cawdor Barracks “secures jobs at home and defence capabilities for the future.”

Following the recent protest, a PARC Against DARC spokesperson said: “It’s overwhelmingly clear to us how much opposition there is both to DARC radar and to the proposed Newgale bypass road, which has just seen a flood of objections in its public consultation that went well over 90% against.

“It’s almost universally believed here that the road, which would decimate the Brandy Brook valley and cost tens of millions, would be required for both the construction and operation of DARC.” A public consultation for a Newgale bypass road is ongoing but the Ministry of Defence has not requested such a road as part of its plans.

Tim Rees, director of local annual Pembrokeshire music event Unearthed Festival, raised concerns about the impact the proposed dishes would have on local businesses.

Speaking at the demonstration, he said: “We have a beautiful coastline which the National Park has done a great job of preserving, and we’re about to turn a blind eye to decades’ worth of preservation, for what? For something we don’t have a say in, that won’t benefit tourism, and will directly impact me in my business.

“I run a music festival as well as some hospitality businesses, and this isn’t going to help. The money that’s invested, we won’t see that as local people.” The Ministry of Defence has already begun an environmental impact assessment for the proposed redevelopment which will include examining its impact on the skyline, wildlife, local people and communities, businesses, as well as the wider landscape and heritage.

For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here

In 2023 the UK, US and Australian security pact signed in 2023, when the three states agreed to build a system which could identify potential “targets” up to 22,000 miles away from Earth where many military satellites are positioned. DARC is not directly part of the partnership but involves collaboration between Australia, the UK and US.

PARC Against DARC say many local residents are concerned about the health impacts they claim are associated with the radiation DARC radar would produce.

“There’s staggering scientific evidence that shows elevated cancer rates in people who work in radar stations that are exactly the same, using the same wavelengths as the one that would be at DARC,” said Emma Tannahill.

“Those people who got cancer were not sitting on the radar dishes at their lunch breaks: they were people who were working at the stations, and they were not directly in front those beams.”

A Ministry of Defence Spokesperson said: “The Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) programme will secure long-term jobs in Pembrokeshire, Wales and help protect essential satellite communication and navigation networks.

“We are engaging with the local community on proposals to redevelop Cawdor Barracks to host DARC, which will be operated by UK personnel.

“We are following processes agreed with Pembrokeshire Country Council and have already begun a comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment, including to ensure the project has minimal impact on the local skyline.

“We continue to hold public information events in Pembrokeshire to hear views and answer any questions. We respect people’s right to peaceful protest.”

What  can we learn from the 1920s and 1930s Plotlands, that might help solve the 2020s housing crisis?

Plotlands books  by Stefan Szczelkun

Plotlands of Shepperton by Stefan Szczelkun

Chalet Fields of the Gower by Stefan Szczelkun and Owen Short 

Why Plotlands were suppressed as a form of housing by Stefan Szczelkun

Video: UK Forgotten Self-Building Tradition with Stefan Szczelkun on 1920-30s Plotlands, Shepperton & Gower

Plotlands and the Housing Crisis by Stefan Szczelkun

What can we learn from the plotlands, that started in the 1920s and 1930s, that could solve the current housing crisis? The key thing is that one starts with something cheap and small and gradually adds to and evolves this starter structure.

1. Land must be made available for self-build development in a way that does not make the plots prohibitively expensive. Ideally maintaining agricultural value per plot. This might imply a legislative change in planning permissions.

2. This might mean some kind of organisation structure that obtains and holds the land for this use. Users could get secure land tenure when they had proved their commitment and availability to build. Resale could only recoup investment made in building materials etc. Additional value might go back into providing more land.

3. Planners would have to be ready to accept a rough and ready aesthetic to start with. With the knowledge from plotlands that the houses will gradually achieve a more coherent architectural aesthetic as they develop over a decade or two. The appreciation of improvisation might require a light hand from Building regulation and planning? Keeping in mind their higher purpose of communal well-being.

4. A motorhome could provide basic amenities at first as the building goes through its initial stages. ie groundwork and initial shelter. Cost of a second-hand motorhome or converting a van could be as low as £5000.

5. The cost of initial ground works (ideally collectivised for 10 or more dwellings) and basic enclosure would constitute a basic level of investment. It would be good if this could be in the region of £20 – £30,000. At this point permanent occupation as a first home would be expected in exchange for security of tenure and a rent to pay back land costs.

6. The initial shelter might be as simple as a single living space with kitchen and bathroom as per motorhome technology. The structure of this space might be a factory made and insulated timber structure. Or, depending on the site and building skills available, the walls might be rammed earth, straw bale, stone or other material as available locally. Recycling of window and door units?
Designed so additional rooms can be added to external walls or through subdivision of the internal space with internal panels.

7. An architectural reference to the ‘Low cost, loose fit, low energy, long life’. Promoted by Alex Gordon in 1972 also Alison Ravetz.

8. This could be applied to multi-storey re-used structure – with a more challenging aesthetics? (although they could be developed behind an agreed skin/ cladding.
Multi-storey flats would be built by a co-operative of builders that included training in required skills.
Groups plan the internal layout and surface finishes of their own flats.

9. The original plotlands used railway carriages, showman’s wagons or buses as the starter shelter. There could be a national reuse of all lorry bodies and larger vans coming to the end of their mechanical life. These might only need insulation and ventilation to be useful.

10. More abstractly: a. The working class produces all value including housing. b. The UK Plotlands shows us what was possible when working class people were allowed half a chance in the 1920s and 1930s. Surviving examples needs to be recognised and protected as our working class cultural heritage. This recognition that we have the power to directly solve our basic human needs is empowering.

11. National extent: Bower, Richard 2021. Lost plotlands: regulatory consequences of forgotten places. Town Planning Review 92 (5) , pp. 643-666. 10.3828/tpr.2021.8
Bowers points to the significance of JA Steers (1944) remarkable walked survey of the British coast in which he identified plotlands as ‘areas of bad scattered development’!
Full Res maps and paper here: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/135909/1/R%20Bower%202020%20Plotlands%20TPR%20post%20print.pdf

Set amongst the houseboat community on the Thames near Fulham, A.P.Herbert’s popular 1930 novel, The Water Gypsies, portrayed a collection of people at odds with society. Colin Ward and Dennis Hardy’s research saved Plotlands from the oblivion of official planning histories

Photographer Jason Orton and writer Ken Worpole documented the changing landscape and coastline of Essex and East Anglia, particularly its estuaries, islands and urban edgelands. In 2013 they published their second book, The New English Landscape (Field Station | London, 2013), the second edition of which was published in 2015.

Down by the river

Hundreds of ACORN members shut down conference in bailiff day of action

October 16, 2025
https://acorntheunion.org.uk/acorn-members-shut-down-conference-in-bailiff-action/

Hundreds of ACORN members from across England and Wales came together in Leeds this week for the first national day of action in our Bailiff Free Britain campaign.

Over 300 members from branches across the country disrupted the annual conference of the Civil Court Users Association, one of the main events for bailiff and debt collection companies. The conference hosted representatives from some of Britain’s largest enforcement firms, but when ACORN arrived, they didn’t stick around for long. Members filled the building, hung banners from the balconies, and within minutes the event was abandoned.

With the building taken over, ACORN members inside hosted our own panel on the fight for a Bailiff Free Britain. Members shared experiences of being in council tax debt, bailiff harassment, and the impact on families and communities. Together we made it clear that the days of bullying and intimidation for profit are numbered.

After shutting down the conference, members marched to Leeds Civic Hall where a group occupied the lobby to demand that Leeds City Council and Cllr Asghar Khan meet with ACORN Leeds. The council had ignored requests for a meeting for months, but after hundreds of members arrived and made themselves heard, Cllr Khan came down to meet us in person. A formal meeting to discuss ACORN’s demands and the wider campaign was quickly confirmed.

The Leeds action was part of ACORN’s national Bailiff Free Britain campaign, which is calling for an end to the use of bailiffs to collect council tax debt and for fairer, more supportive alternatives. Across England and Wales, council tax debt has now reached almost £7 billion, and more than 1.4 million households were referred to bailiffs last year. Meanwhile, bailiff companies are making tens of millions of pounds in profit while people already struggling through the cost of living crisis are being pushed even deeper into debt.

ACORN is demanding an end to the use of bailiffs for council tax collection, proper support for people in arrears, caps on excessive fees, an end to imprisonment for non-payment, and a fairer alternative to the council tax system. These changes would protect millions of people and stop councils from relying on private companies that profit from poverty.

SIGN OUR OPEN LETTER HERE https://acornuk.good.do/englandcampaigns/bailiff_letter/

The day in Leeds showed what happens when working-class people stand together. Hundreds of members forced the bailiff industry to abandon its own conference, won a meeting with the council after months of being ignored, and made our demands impossible to ignore.

From Leeds to Cardiff to Bristol, ACORN members are proving that when communities get organised, we can take on powerful industries and win. The fight for a Bailiff Free Britain has only just begun, join ACORN today to be a part of it.

Country’s first community-owned farm in north Shropshire to double in size after donation

But the expanding group better watch out for sophisticated infiltration, so they don’t go down the heartbreaking routes of Robin Page’s Countryside Restoration Trust and Dorset’s Monkton Wyld Court

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/farming/2025/09/16/countrys-first-community-owned-farm-in-north-shropshire-to-double-in-size-after-donation-but-theres-a-twist/

A north Shropshire farm that became the first in the country to be community-owned is set to double in size after being gifted a second farm.

Fordhall Organic Farm, near Market Drayton, became England’s first community-owned farm in 2006, after a national campaign saved it from industrial development.

Faced with eviction in 2005, the family behind the farm raised enough money through 8,000 non-profit shareholders to purchase the 126-acre site. Since then, the farm has thrived under the leadership of tenant farmer Ben Hollins and his sister Charlotte – children of Arthur Hollins who turned the farm organic.

Now, Fordhall Farm has announced that it will double in size thanks to the generous donation of a second farm – but there’s a twist.

The farm that is being gifted is not in Market Drayton, nor is it in Shropshire, but incredibly, 200 miles away in Devon.

West Town Farm, near Exeter, is a 170-acre organic beef and sheep enterprise. Like Fordhall, it hosts a wide range of community activities including arts, community gardening, camping, weddings and community events, and also boasts a farm shop.

Its current owner, Andy Bragg, said he believes that farms should be at the “heart of rural communities”, and, as he approaches retirement, has decided to gift the farm to the Fordhall Community Land Initiative to ensure that West Town’s community ethos continues.

Charlotte Hollins, General Manager at Fordhall Community Land Initiative said: “The similarities between West Town and Fordhall are striking. Both are organic, pasture-for-life livestock farms and have community at our heart.

“We both want to show a different direction for farming and understand the importance of retaining those connections to the land both within our communities as well as the soil. We have also both been described as slightly quirky, different and even crack-pot at times!

“Dad (late Arthur Hollins) and Andy are such similar characters. The charitable structure of Fordhall Community Land Initiative means that the amazing work begun by Andy in Devon can be continued and secured well into the future, alongside the work of Dad, at Fordhall. Both with local people fully involved in the process.”

The transfer of the farm to Fordhall will not be completed until 2027, allowing time for legal and governance structures to be finalised.

In the meantime, existing staff at West Town, including Andy, will continue running the farm, while the Fordhall Community Land Initiative will provide support and guidance, drawing on nearly 20 years of experience in community farm ownership.

“I suppose some people will think it’s strange to give my farm away,” said Andy.

“I don’t want West Town Farm to be gobbled up by some giant agri-business. What I care about is that the farm’s place in the community and locality. I want the farm to benefit everyone and I know that giving it to Fordhall Community Land Initiative will ensure this happens.

“Fordhall’s values are strongly aligned and gifting West Town Farm to ordhall will protect West Town Farm’s mission and values. Although we are 200 miles apart, the synergy between us means we are both on the same path.

“Learning together, supporting each other and playing a part in our local communities. Whether that is hosting school visits, art groups or barn dances etc, and the local community will always be welcome.”

How Labour bowed to corporate landlords – and it’s already backfiring

Build-to-rent companies are in line for a windfall while private landlords get squeezed

SEE ALSO Who’s Really Buying Up Britain? (The Data Will Shock You) by British Home Group

Ruby Hinchliffe

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/how-labour-support-corporate-landlords-come-back-bite/

Rachel Reeves bowed to corporate landlords in her Budget just as she mounted a fresh raid on ordinary families with incomes from second properties.

Private landlords now face tens of thousands of pounds in additional bills, from tax to licensing and energy improvements – while build-to-rent developers are on track for a £3bn windfall.

Many of these firms – which include FTSE 100 companies and even banks – have long lobbied successive governments in an effort to squeeze smaller, private landlords out.

Deputy prime minister, Angela Rayer, was photographed just last month whispering in the ear of Larry Finks, BlackRock’s chief executive.

Grainger UK, whose biggest shareholder is BlackRock, currently owns over 11,000 rental homes. It is believed to be the biggest corporate landlord in England.

Legal & General (L&G) also claims to have poured over £3bn into rental investments to date.

Even Britain’s biggest bank, Lloyds, is honing in on the opportunity. Its build-to-rent company Citra Living now owns 5,000 properties and counting.

“Behind closed doors, Labour tends to be supportive of build-to-rent – but not in public,” one industry insider told The Telegraph.

Some Labour politicians have already staked a claim in the corporate landlord market. London Mayor and “renters champion”, Sadiq Khan, has said he wants to raise £187m come 2030 by building rental homes near Transport for London (TfL) stations.

To achieve this, Mr Khan needs to more than quadruple the number of rental homes on TfL’s books, from 4,000 to 20,000, by 2031. As of this year, TfL had started building 4,000 rental units – of which only around 1,500 have been delivered to date.

Dan Wilson Craw, of campaign group Generation Rent, said profit-driven institutional landlords had been linked to “unaffordable rent increases”.

He said: “Some [tenants] have had better experiences than renting from individuals with a small portfolio, but being corporate doesn’t inherently equate professionalism and long-term tenancies.

“While some pension funds [investors of build-to-rent] appear committed to longer tenancies, with limited annual rent rises, we’ve heard reports of other investment funds seeking to maximise profits through unaffordable rent increases and evictions.”

‘Are we building the ghettos of the future?’

Build-to-rent flats are often advertised as being “more energy efficient” than private rental homes, but as some residents in Wembley have found out – that’s not always the case.

Speaking to The Telegraph earlier this year, tenants of Quintain Living – a US-owned company – said they were paying 86pc more for their energy bills than the average Londoner.

This was in spite of the company advertising average savings of “56pc” on utility bills, thanks to every flat boasting an energy performance certificate rating of “B”.

A Quintain spokesman has since blamed a planning consent order, which required the developer to build two district heat networks to supply heat and hot water to the buildings.

In another case in Croydon, south London, residents in one of L&G’s £3,000 a month “luxury” build-to-rent developments have spent the last year fighting for better living conditions.

Reports from My London and Inside Croydon in September quoted some of the 251 tenants whose pets had even fallen ill from mould, which was first exposed by campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa.

Others reported collapsed ceilings and severe water leaks. L&G has since begun to fix the issues which it blamed on a “build quality issue”.

Richard Upton, a social developer and a visiting fellow at the University of Reading, said he “worries” when he sees schemes of thousands of flats going up.

“Is that a place for people to live for 20 years? With just a coffee shop underneath? This is where we need to be thinking more about mixed use, adding parks and other amenities.

“Such is the rate of inflation and the cost of new things, that those in new-build flats – especially in London – can just about afford to exist. It’s a good thing if income-to-rent ratios one day come down, if we build enough. But at what cost? Are we building the ghettos of the future?

“I fear there is a risk of quality being overlooked in the race for units. The Government wants to build 1.5 million homes. The industry calls them units.”

Rent premiums

It’s not just the varying quality of new builds erected at pace that’s worrying. Often, rents for new-builds carry a 10pc premium – much like new-build sales.

Britain’s biggest landlord, Grainger UK, collects nearly £100m in rent each year.

In May, the London Renters Union campaign group protested outside Grainger UK’s head office accusing the company of “getting rich gentrifying our city’s neighbourhoods” and “lobbying [the] Government against our rights”.

In a thread on X, formerly Twitter, the campaign group also accused the company of putting up luxury flats for rent in historically working-class areas such as Tottenham or Canning Town which are “wildly unaffordable for local people”.

“Corporate landlords and developers are tearing our communities apart, pushing us out while lining their own pockets,” one of their tweets reads.

A member of the campaign group living in Seven Sisters claimed they were forced out by a 50pc rent increase, after their landlord cited a nearby Grainger UK development as “the new market rent”.

Grainger UK disputed this and said its Seven Sisters development, Apex Gardens, is regulated by the Government’s Regulator of Social Housing and includes a high proportion of affordable homes on rents below the open market.

Grainger UK told The Telegraph that rather than lobbying against renters’ rights, it has publicly supported Labour’s Renters’ Rights Bill.

In September this year, in an official London stock market announcement, Grainger Uk said it “looks forward to continuing to use its expertise to help inform and shape the final legislation”.

A spokesman for Grainger UK said that tenants of the company in London spend just “28pc” of their incomes on rent and that it has “no control over other landlords’ pricing”.

Costly legal challenges

The challenges that come with corporate landlords are already playing out abroad. In Berlin, where 85pc of residents are renters, at least 250,000 homes are owned by corporations.

Their shareholders benefit from around 41 cents of every euro tenants pay in rent on average, according to the research arm of consumer lobby group Finanzwende.

Unprecedented rises in rents, paired with poor maintenance, has sparked city-wide protests and referendums to transfer ownership of the homes back to the state after it sold them off in the 1990s.

The city’s largest renter association told The Telegraph last year that while individual landlords typically raise rents by around 20pc, corporate ones will raise them by as much as 50pc.

One thing which is worrying England’s corporate landlords – despite all the well-received lobbying – is Labour’s plan to get rid of powers to write rent increases into contracts, as part of its Renters’ Rights Bill.

This change, once in legislation, will force corporations to serve tenants with rent notices which – unlike contracted rent increases – can be challenged in a tribunal if they do not reflect the “market rate”.

If tenants were to start challenging rent increases en masse, this could pose a serious risk to the income of these listed companies and their shareholders.

Some law firms have even suggested such “restrictions” on in-tenancy rent increases could lead to deep-pocketed landlords waging costly future legal challenges against the Labour government – particularly if rents fail to keep pace with market inflation.

Corbyn hits back at Rayner’s war on allotments

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/08/05/corbyn-hits-back-rayner-war-allotments/
https://archive.is/Ke7oe
Former Labour leader and vegetable-growing fan accuses Housing Secretary of trying to put a nail in the coffin of a long British tradition
Tony Diver Associate Political Editor
Related Topics

• Jeremy Corbyn,
• Allotments,
• Fruit and vegetables,
• Angela Rayner,
• Housing crisis,
• Labour Party

05 August 2025 6:00am BST
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Jeremy Corbyn has accused Angela Rayner of hammering a nail in the coffin of community allotments after she said councils could sell them off to raise money.

https://archive.is/Ke7oe

The former Labour leader criticised his former colleague after The Telegraph revealed she had agreed for eight allotments across England to be sold since last years general election.

Writing for The Telegraph, Mr Corbyn said the decision would fill many with deep dismay and accused Ms Rayner of making the future of these precious spaces even more perilous.

Praising the Diggers, English Civil War dissidents who sought common ownership of land, he said: Is this government going to put the nail in the coffin of the joy of digging ground for potatoes on a cold, wet February Sunday afternoon?
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Mr Corbyn, who has recently turned his back on Labour to launch a new party, is a keen horticulturist and uses an allotment near his north London home.

He has said his favourite crop was marrows, and that time spent growing produce helped alleviate the stress of working in Westminster.

Ms Rayner has changed the rules on local government assets to give cash-strapped councils more flexibility to sell off land, including allotments and school playing fields.

Some of the land, including a community allotment in Storrington, West Sussex, has been sold to developers to build new homes.

Mr Corbyn said Labour should have more regard for the troubled history of land ownership, and the struggle over access by those who simply want to grow their own crops.

He wrote: Of course, social housing is desperately needed, but we need not sacrifice these vital green spaces to build it, he wrote.

We can build on ex-industrial land and take over empty properties. Even then, we should ensure social housing is accompanied by community gardens and adequate growing space.
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Under a century-old law, the Housing Secretary is required to give permission for any to be sold off by local authorities.

The list of eight allotments she has agreed to be sold were revealed in Parliament last month, and include sites in Somerset, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire.

Mr Corbyn has said he does not use any weedkiller on his allotment, which can make the process of weeding it laborious, but believes that each gardener has their own philosophy.

I like a marrow, he told his local newspaper earlier this year. You get a long marrow which is basically a courgette and cut it long ways; take out the seeds to plant again for next year, then fill it with chopped vegetables, onions, make some indentations in it and smother that in olive oil and bake it very slowly.

His intervention on allotment policy is one of the first criticisms of the Labour Government since he launched his new political outfit, which will be called Your Party until supporters have voted on a name.
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The party supports nationalisation of public utilities and infrastructure, and will have the support of trade unions, he said. It is also opposed to the Israeli governments assault on Gaza, but other policy decisions will be taken after a vote of members later this year.

Ms Rayner previously served in Mr Corbyns top team as shadow education secretary, before winning the deputy leadership of the party in the year Sir Keir Starmer became the party leader.

Her department said that councils should only sell off allotments where it is clearly necessary and offers value for money.

A spokesman added: We know how important allotments are for communities, and that is why strict criteria is in place to protect them, as well as school playing fields.

But the Conservatives said the policy was a kick in the teeth to local people who dont have access to their own gardens and called for the Government to do more to protect green spaces.

The loss of allotments makes us all poorer

By Jeremy Corbyn

News that Angela Rayner may approve allotment sales will fill many with deep dismay.

Allotments have always been under threat from developers. Now, that threat seems to have government backing, which makes the future of these precious spaces even more perilous.
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Those advising government and local authorities should have some regard for the troubled history of land ownership, and the struggle over access by those who simply want to grow their own crops.

The debate goes back to the English Civil War, when the King wanted to secure control of the land he had gained, while Cromwell claimed to speak for the farmers. In truth, it was the Diggers who were the real revolutionaries. They wanted land to be in common ownership.

Despite the restoration of the monarchy, huge areas of land were known as the Commons and survived for almost another two centuries. That is, until the greed of big landowners won out once again.
Jeremy Corbyn on his allotment with his son Tommy

The Enclosure Acts, one of the most grotesque abuses of power by Parliament, took away the growing and grazing rights of the rural poor. A monstrous attack on working-class life, the enclosures represented the widespread theft of public land, sanctioned by a parliament that was dominated by landowners.

The rural poor, left with nothing and facing starvation, were forced to migrate to industrial cities. It was in these rapidly growing industrial cities notably in Birmingham that allotments started to grow. Allotments, then, grew out of opposition to enclosures and the privatisation of common land.
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Allotments were regulated in the late 19th and 20th century and, even though numbers have since fallen, there are about 330,000 allotment plots. At least 100,000 people are on waiting lists.

Once lost, they never return

Allotments have been crucial in times of national stress. Many came out of the Second World War. Indeed, many that were established in the First World War, such as the one I enjoy in north London, have survived to this day.

Once lost, they never return. Their loss makes us all poorer, as we become more and more detached from how food is grown and how nature interacts with us.

Allotments provide a vital space for community cohesion, biodiversity and social solidarity. These parcels of land, that cannot be individually fenced, provide growing space for many people.

Many people have no access to their own garden, and an allotment gives them the opportunity to grow vegetables and fruit and observe nature.

Allotments are particularly important for people who experience stress and mental health problems. I speak to many people who would love access to them for this very reason.
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Property developers have always had their eyes on these parcels of land. Together with local authorities, they construct various arguments for building over them. Instead of contemplating sales of these wonderful spaces, the Government should be encouraging the growth of allotments, or where there is insufficient land, the growth of community and school gardens.

In my own borough of Islington, community gardens have played a vital role in bringing the community together and encouraging sustainable food production.

Of course, social housing is desperately needed, but we need not sacrifice these vital green spaces to build it. We can build on ex-industrial land and take over empty properties. Even then, we should ensure social housing is accompanied by community gardens and adequate growing space.

Is this Government going to put the nail in the coffin of the joy of digging ground for potatoes on a cold, wet February Sunday afternoon? The battle for the grass roots is on!

Jeremy Corbyn is the independent MP for Islington North

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Farmers across Northern Ireland are warning that new net zero-driven phosphate regulations will destroy the region’s beef and dairy industry.

Without proper consultation, civil servants are imposing strict phosphorus limits that could force farms to slash livestock numbers or shut down entirely. Estimates show a £1.6 billion hit to the Northern Ireland agri-food economy, with rising food prices, job losses, and long-term damage to UK food security.

Beef and dairy farmer David Irwin says this isn’t about clean rivers, it’s about “killing cows for climate goals.” Reporter Dougie Beattie investigates the growing farmer backlash and what it could mean for the rest of the UK.

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