Access To Land & Land Reform

Ownership and access to land in the UK are historic issues and remain amongst the most pervasive structural barriers to common good land use. Land is too expensive, ownership is extremely concentrated and we don’t have clear information on any of it. Yet, fundamental reforms are rarely discussed in public policy circles.

CPRE adds to calls for a land use strategy for England

CPRE’s recently joined a growing group of organisations calling for the development of a new land use strategy for England. Now we need to translate broad-based support for this idea into action

Land for What? Building a movement around land as a common struggle

Shared Assets is part of the Land for What? Coalition, a group of organisations coming together to build a movement around land as a common struggle. Land for What? is hosting a number of events in the coming year – this one is a large convergence in London on the weekend of 12-13th November.

Why we need to talk about common good land use

Launching our new video on ‘Common Good Land Use’, we explain why talking about land in terms of the ‘common good’ is crucial to making land work for everyone.

Why we need experiments in land use

Following our team away day at Letchworth Garden City, Tom blogs about why we need to make it easier for people to experiment with new ways of using land.

Can networks join up land activism?

Power to Change’s Peer Networks programme is now in full swing. As we learn more and more about how to run sustainable, effective networks, we’re beginning to apply this knowledge to various aspects of our work with land. First, we look at how diverging identities, values and purposes affect networks of land activists.

Designing subsidies for people and the environment

Our policy officer Tom argues that subsidies need to be refocused on promoting social and environmental value. How might we engineer a system of subsidies if developing it from scratch today?

Ownership data and common good land use

The Government’s plans to privatise the Land Registry will lose the public resources and control if they go ahead. Moreover, our research suggests that communities and land-based social enterprises will be amongst the biggest losers.

Land Registry: sell it off or open it up?

Our Director, Mark Walton, sets out why we will be campaigning against the proposed privatisation of the Land Registry.

Learning from Land Reform

Here at Shared Assets we support the development of new models of managing land that deliver shared social, economic and environmental benefits. However, making land work for everyone will require changes to public policy as well as new business models.

This is a local development, for local people: some thoughts on Land Value Tax

The Land Value Tax is an old policy idea that is generating a great deal of new interest. Its proponents range from Winston Churchill to the Occupy Movement. We explore an idea whose time may be approaching. Read more

Opening up the Land Registry – a letter to Greg Clark

Accessible information on ownership is crucial to making land work for everyone. We recently brought together a broad coalition of organisations interested in opening up the Land Registry. There was a real thirst for change, and as the first step we have sent a joint letter to the Minister responsible for the Land Registry.

The Land Registry privatisation is off – now lets open it up

The government has come to its senses and listened to the huge opposition to the privatisation of the Land Registry. This is great news, but there is more to do. Now we need to push for ownership information to be made freely available to everyone

What on Earth is Up at the Land Registry?

Reports claim that plans to privatise the Registry have been halted in the face of strikes and campaigns, but what happens next?

Democratising Land Data

“If we want people to play a bigger part in our society, we need to give them the information.” Despite these words from David Cameron in 2010, lack of accessible data about land remains a problem. In this blog we explain why we think access to land data is such an important issue for land based social enterprise and explore some ways in which it might be improved. Let us know what you think.

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