Campaign to stop landbanking firms dividing up the countryside

MPs and countryside campaigners are urging the government to crack down on "landbanking" firms amid fears that Kate Barker's call for a review of green belt boundaries could trigger a surge of speculative activity.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) launched the campaign after finding nearly 30 companies which are involved in buying up land in open countryside and subdividing it into small plots, sometimes with stakes and fences. 

The firms subsequently market the plots, mainly online, as having potential for development and sell them at often inflated prices.

The companies generally do not have the necessary authorisations from either planning authorities or the financial regulator to support the investment claims made.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has been investigating some of the companies. One of the larger firms involved in this area - Land Heritage (UK) Ltd  - recently went into liquidation, owing £7m, after selling plots of land to 700 investors.

Speaking at the launch of a package of measures to help prepare for zero carbon developments in the future, Kelly said that "existing Green Belt policy has served us well, and I am yet to be convinced that substantial policy changes are needed".

Greg Mullholland, the Liberal Democrat MP for Leeds North West, has tabled a Commons Early Day Motion calling on fellow parliamentarians to back the CPRE campaign.

The CPRE wants the government and regulatory bodies to draw up an action plan to crackdown on this aspect of landbanking and to ensure local authorities have more freedom to deal with the visual impact of landbanking through planning controls.

The government has acknowledged there is a problem. Communities and Local Government has been consulting on changes to permitted development rights.
Proposals could allow local planning authorities to remove the landbanking companies' rights to put up fences and stakes on their land, though not where this physical evidence of land sub-division has already taken place.

Paul Miner, CPRE's planning campaigner, said: "In Australia they have clear laws to stop this practice and are using them. We shouldn't have to tolerate it here either. Communities and Local Government, the DTI, the Financial Services Authority and the Office of Fair Trading need to work together and stamp it out completely."

Find out more about the CPRE campaigns

View a related Planning Portal article - Calls for landbanking watchdog

View a related Planning Portal article - Landbanking firm faces closure

Roger Milne

15 December 2006