Land Use Policy 26S (2009) S103S108

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Land Use Policy

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol

Land ownership in the United Kingdom: Trends, preferences and future challenges
Robert Home
Anglia Law School, Anglia Ruskin University, Bishop Hall Lane, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 1SF, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
The relation between population, land use and land ownership has been little explored by academic researchers, and the redistribution of land ownership has largely disappeared from political debate. This article, while recognising the fragmented and limited data available on land ownership, seeks to summarise the broad changes in land ownership during the past century, distinguishing the three main types: private, state and communal tenure, as well as freehold and leasehold tenures. After considering the effects of the spatial planning system upon land use, it addresses some critical emerging issues, such as environmental protection, risk assessment, and housing land supply, and suggests some future directions for land ownership and the role of the state. 2009 Queens Printer and Controller of HMSO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 13 August 2009 Accepted 18 August 2009 Keywords: Land ownership Land use Population pressure United Kingdom Home ownership Land markets Spatial planning

Introduction The UK is one of the most crowded countries in the European Union, and indeed the world (see Table 1). This means pressure upon land and land use, and makes it especially difcult to nd land for new development. Unlike much of continental Europe, the UK has experienced little major redistribution of land ownership since the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century, apart from the temporary growth of state land ownership in the 20th century, some of which was reversed during the 1980s. Lobbyists and journalists (Cahill, 2001; Norton-Taylor, 1982; Wightman, 1996) have criticised the continuing concentration of landed wealth in the UK, but the relationships between land ownership, population and land use have been little explored, while the planning system, which allocates land uses, is largely blind to matters of land ownership. This article seeks to provide an overview of the main changes and continuities in land ownership over the past century, and what future changes can be expected in the coming years. The issues to be explored include the role of the planning system in securing sufcient development land for societys needs, changes in the existing housing stock, possible greater government intervention to acquire more land, and new legal and scal measures.

Data sources and limitations Published information on land ownership is scattered among numerous data sources, which are seemingly designed to make comparison and analysis difcult (Goodchild and Munton, 1984, p. 3). Apart from the Land Registries (discussed below), among government bodies the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) holds datasets on housing and construction rates for England, the Statistics Authority on demographic trends, the Valuation Agency (VOA) on land prices, and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on land use change and agricultural holdings, again only for England. Important nongovernmental sources include the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the Council of Mortgage Lenders. There have been major recent advances in the technical infrastructure: global positioning satellite (GPS) systems collect and update geo-spatial data with great precision, the Ordnance Survey has digitised its entire map base, and the Gazetteer Act 1997 requires local authorities to maintain sophisticated local land databases using BS7666 (Wyatt, 1999). Land ownership, although sometimes regarded as a continuum or spectrum, can be divided into three basic types: Private property, held by individuals and other legal entities. The state guarantees the right to property (under the First Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights), but such rights may be removed by compulsory purchase, and are limited by the statutory planning system. Within the past decade the potential

While the Government Ofce for Science commissioned this review, the views are those of the author(s), are independent of Government, and do not constitute Government policy. E-mail address: Robert.home@anglia.ac.uk.

0264-8377/$ see front matter 2009 Queens Printer and Controller of HMSO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2009.08.013

S104 Table 1 Selected country population densities (2005). Country UK Netherlands Belgium Germany Japan Poland France Spain World Population (m) 60.7 16.4 10.4 82.7 127.4 38.5 60.5 43.0 6700

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Land area (000 sq km) 242.5 41.5 30.5 357.0 377.9 312.7 551.5 506.0 148,940

Population density (pp sq km) 246 395 341 232 337 123 110 85 45

Source: Ofcial statistics. Note: 1 sq km = 100 ha.

of private land tenure security for reducing global poverty has been promoted, notably by De Soto (2000), and by international agencies through the UN-Habitat Global Campaign on Secure Tenure, the Global Land Tools Network, and the Commission for Legal Empowerment of the Poor. State land, controlled by public bodies, which may be central, regional or local authorities, or parastatal bodies. A range of land rights that can be loosely categorised as communal or third sector (terminologies are debated). Land tenure is also distinguished legally as being either freehold or leasehold. The Law of Property Acts 192225 converted feudal land tenure into a simpler system, creating the fee simple absolute in possession (freehold), and the term of years absolute, a leasehold interest for a specied period of time. The prime source of land ownership data in the United Kingdom is the statutory register of title, held respectively by the Land Registry (England and Wales) (LREW), the Registers of Scotland, and the Land Registers of Northern Ireland. None of these have geographically comprehensive data on land ownership (although they have that aim), since all land is not yet registered, nor do they publish aggregated data, for example on types of ownership and average sizes of land ownership parcels. Thus we do not know the exact distribution of ownership between the three main tenure types. While the LREW has been open to public inspection since 1990, it allows inquiries on individual land parcels for a fee per inquiry, making a search of the register expensive for often limited information, while local authority records e.g. the planning register have to be searched separately. LREW (2008a) boasts of having the largest online transactional [my italics] database globally, and in 2008 recorded 4.5 million transactions, including debt and mortgage charges secured against property, and 11 million enquiries. In 2008 it claimed to have 21.6 million titles registered, covering some 64 percent of the total land area of England and Wales. It estimates that a million titles are yet to be registered, mostly large private estates, and, with compulsory legal triggers for rst registration introduced by the Land Registration Act 2002, expects to complete the register within 10 years. Historical trends One can identify the following trends in UK land ownership over the past century: the growth of home ownership, the survival (mainly in the countryside) of concentrated hereditary land ownership, the decline of leasehold tenure, the expansion (and then contraction) of state land ownership, and the growth of legal forms of communal ownership. Home ownership The biggest change in UK land ownership in the 20th century was the growth of home ownership, mostly of separate dwellings

on small land parcels of less than 0.1 ha. The largest single category of registered land-owners are private home-owners, representing perhaps two-thirds of the registered land titles (although the statistics are complicated by multi-storey ownerships, buy-to-let property and other factors). Owner-occupiers increased their share of the housing stock in England and Wales from 10 percent in 1914 to 71 percent in 2000 (Social Trends, 2000). Councils controlled a third of the housing stock in the 1970s, but right-to-buy legislation by the Thatcher Government resulted in 1.6 million homes switching from council to home ownership in 198094 (Balchin and Rhoden, 1998, p. 69). During the 20th century the total dwelling stock grew by some three times, from 7 million to 20 million. Four million houses, 2.9 million of them private, were built in the 20 years between the two World Wars (Saunders, 1990, p. 26). This growth was accompanied by a fall in average household size from 4.6 personsper-household in 1901 to 2.4 a century later (England and Wales). That fall reected smaller family sizes, a contraction in the active period of child-bearing, and also the decline of non-family household members, such as resident domestic servants and lodgers (Balchin and Rhoden, 1998, p. 70). This growth in the housing stock has been accompanied by a trend to smaller homes. The average oorspace of a new dwelling in England and Wales now the lowest in Europe at 76 sq m (compared with 92 in Japan and 115 in the Netherlands, countries with higher population pressures). For all dwellings (new and existing) the gure was 85 sq m compared with 98 in the Netherlands (Evans and Hartwich, 2005). British homes are tting more rooms into the same space, and the older housing survives because it is bigger and more adaptable (Bartlett, 2002). The density of new housing is also rising, and in 2007 was 44 dwellings per hectare, compared with the garden city planners ideal a century earlier of twelve to the acre, which equals 30 per ha (Land Use Change, 2009). Flats, maisonettes and apartments have a growing share of the housing stock in England (lower in Wales); it is currently about a fth, up from 7 percent in 1964 when it was mostly council-owned (DCLG Statistics). Survival of large private land ownership Through the 19th and into the 20th century the land question (basically feudal tenure and the concentration of landed wealth) was a major political issue, contributing to the Liberal election landslide of 1906. When a comprehensive survey of land ownership was undertaken in 1873, 7000 individuals were found to own some 80 percent of the land area of Britain. After the First World War, however, land became a forgotten controversy (Packer, 2001), following the rise in home ownership, the break-up of many large estates, state provision of housing and small-holdings, and the land law reforms of 192225. At the beginning of the 21st century, notwithstanding the growth of home ownership, landed wealth is still concentrated

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in relatively few hands (Blinkhorn and Gibson, 1991; Thompson, 1990). An estimated 200,000 individuals (mostly comprising the monarchy, aristocracy and gentry) own about two-thirds of the land, and Norton-Taylor (1982) estimated that some 1700 individuals owned a third of all land. State land ownership The 20th century saw the expansion, and then contraction, of state land ownership in the UK. At its peak, during the Second World War, the state owned a sixth of the UK land area. In reaction against the post-War socialist land redistribution in many countries, neoliberal ideology has promoted the transfer of much state land into private hands and greater transnational capital ows into property. In the 1970s, there was academic research (e.g. Massey and Catalano, 1978) into land ownership, linked politically to post-War Labour governments attempts to control development land. But the Conservative government of 197997 drove land ownership off political and academic agendas in the UK, and the subsequent Labour governments after 1997 did not restore it. Massey and Catalano (1978) estimated that the state then owned some 19 percent of all land in Great Britain (including central government 79 percent, and local authorities 7 percent), while Clark (1981) separately found that 17 percent of the land area of Scotland was owned by public bodies (mostly central government, the largest being the Forestry Commission). In 1984 registers of public agency land recorded 43,000 ha of potential development land (Howes, 1984), much of which was transferred to the private sector in the 1980s. Currently the largest government owners are the Defence Estate and the Forestry Commission (see Table 2). Communal land ownership Customary or communal land was until recently regarded in global discourses on land as a vestige of the past bound for extinction. But it is now being rediscovered and promoted. In recent years there has been increased UK policy interest in community ownership or management of land and buildings, and the Quirk Review (2007) recommended that community development trusts should become more mainstream. Common land, while mostly privately owned, has legal protection, with statutory registers maintained by local authorities (Clayden, 2003). Large communal land-owners include the National Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and the Wildlife Trusts (see Table 2). Recent legislation is facilitating forms of communal ownership and management. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 increased public access to land (the right to roam) (Shoard, 1987); the Scottish Land Reform Act 2003 abolished feudal land tenure
Table 2 Some large land-owners in UK. Owner Common land Aristocracy (26 Dukes) National Trust (inc Scottish NT) Monarchy Forestry Commission (England) Defence Estate Pension funds Royal Society for Protection of Birds County farms Wildlife Trusts Local authorities Woodland Trust Hectares (000s) 550 400 325 260 250 160 200 130 150 90 90 20

Table 3 Extent of major land uses and policies in UK. Land use Agricultural Urban Forest and woodland Policy designations (categories overlap) Green Belts (England only) Special Areas of Conservation SSSI AONB Sources: DEFRA, DCLG (2008). % land area 73.9 14.4 11.6 12.6 10.3 9.9 9.6

and empowered communities to acquire land with the benet of charitable status and stamp duty exemption (Wightman, 1996) and the Commonhold Act 2002 introduced condominium ownership, mainly intended for apartment buildings (LREW, 2008b). These new tenure forms are making limited impact upon land-ownership patterns, but can be expected to grow. Tenure shifts The 20th century saw a decline in leasehold tenure in different sectors of landed property, and there have been more purchases of land by property companies, insurance companies and pension funds, including foreign investors (Lizieri and Kutsch, 2006). Business property has generally been provided through medium-term leases from specialist property companies (Scott, 1987). Recently the large food retailers have expanded by acquiring land and owning their own stores, using their cash resources to nd suitable out-of-town sites, obtain planning permission, and provide infrastructure. Tesco now owns 70 percent of its sites, and J Sainsbury 50 percent, while Marks and Spencer has always had a policy of owning rather than renting (corporate website). In the housing sector, leasehold enfranchisement allowed at lessees to acquire freeholds and superior interests (a million private ats were still held on long leases in 1991), while the introduction of shorthold tenancies in 1996 encouraged the construction of buyto-let ats. By 2009 there were 2.6 million privately rented homes (DCLG statistics). In the agricultural sector, tenant farming declined from 90 percent of the land area in 1873 to 35 percent in 1994, and the total number of farmers and farm businesses is falling, with exit rates exceeding entry rates. This trend reects the long-term restructuring of agriculture and short-term problems of low protability and uncertainty (ADAS, 2004; Northeld, 1979). Land and the planning system The land use planning system, a creature of the 20th century, has no direct role in land ownership, yet its statutory responsibility for allocating land use, and hence land value, is central. Its concern with land ownership is limited to matching allocation to the supply of development land (Goodchild and Munton, 1984), but compulsory acquisition under planning powers is rare, constrained by compensation costs and public disapproval. There is little political pressure for redistribution of land ownership, although large land-owners can enjoy huge windfall gains from growing development land values (Table 3). Development land supply The planning system operates to allocate land use, mediating between powerful contesting forces, particularly those protecting

Sources: Cahill (2005), Massey and Catalano (1978), Norton-Taylor (1982), institutional websites. Note: Common land is privately owned but protected.

S106 Table 4 Agricultural holdings by size (2008).

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England Number of holdings (000) Average size (all holdings) (ha) % total area on holdings of 100 hectares and over Number of holdings 200 hectares and over Source: DEFRA. 187.9 30.8 68.5 5.1

Wales 36.5 16.4 54.5 0.2

Scotland 50.2 21.2 86.1 0.7

N. Ireland 28.5 18.5 28.8 0.1

the countryside and the environment and those demanding new development. Policy favours development on browneld rather than greeneld sites, in town rather than out of town (through the sequential test). Current planning thinking, driven by the new imperatives of climate change, reducing carbon emissions and protecting habitats, is focussed more on higher housing densities, less car dependency and compact cities, but the existence of millions of low-density suburban private house-plots makes a major physical reshaping of settlement patterns difcult. The gures for future housing provision, derived from demographic forecasts, are the main driver for development land release through the planning system, and are imposing unrealistically high targets for local development plans. Supply constraints have driven up the price of residential building land in England and Wales more than ten-fold in the past 25 years (174,000 per hectare in 1984 to 2.9 million in 2009: VOA gures). Such high land values, which translate into high prices for new housing, create difculties in providing affordable housing through Section 106 agreements. Environmental and countryside protection Public disapproval of greeneld development is reected in an array of planning policies restricting development in the countryside, supported by an enhanced planning enforcement regime. Probably the most known and popular planning policy is the Green Belt, which prohibits all inappropriate development over some 13 percent of the land area of England. Agriculture was for most of the 20th century largely exempt from planning control, and the continuing concentration of land ownership in the UK is reected in the relatively large size of agricultural land-holdings (see Table 4). The price of agricultural land with vacant possession rose by about three times from 1990 to 2008 (VOA data). Long-established policies to protect countryside, landscape and heritage are being reinforced by a growing array of European Union legal instruments. The Habitats Directive has resulted in the Natura 2000 network of Special Areas of Conservation, while measures to conserve water resources have resulted in river-basin and coastal management schemes that restrict new development. The greater frequency of ooding is affecting land use allocation, with some 1015 percent of land in England located in ood-risk areas (although 10 percent of new dwellings in 2007 were still being built within such areas) (Environment Agency, 2009). As the Environment Agency warns:
Table 5 UK projected population densities (persons per sq km). Popn. 1987 UK England Wales Scotland N. Ireland 56.7 47.2 2.8 5.1 1.6 Density 1987 (pp sq km) 234 363 136 65 117

The latest UK climate change data shows that the risk of ooding and coastal erosion will continue to increase in future due to rising sea levels and more frequent and heavy storms, and there are important decisions for us all to take about how to manage these risks to protect people, communities, businesses and the economy in future (Environment Agency, 2009). The future of land ownership Survey ndings on public attitudes, perceptions and aspirations towards property offer some pointers to future land-ownership trends. The recent severe shocks to the economic and nancial system make the task of identifying future land-ownership trends more than usually speculative, as do the uncertainties of accelerating climate change. Greater transparency and availability of data on land ownership, and the achievement of a comprehensive land register, would be helpful. Pressures on land Underlying population pressures upon land will continue. The UKs population passed 60 million in 2005, and is projected to pass 70 million by 2031 (Population Trends, 2009). Table 5 shows ofcial projections of population densities. The South-East is the most densely populated English region (394 in 1987, rising to 423 in 2006), and the South-West the least (193 in 1987, 203 in 2006). Such population pressures create demands for new development, and strain the planning system. Disputes over land can be expected to increase, both defences of private property rights, and disputes between different levels of government (local, regional, national and European). Among recent publicised litigation can be cited the following: attempts by private land-owners to force public investment in ood defences; local authority objections to new imposed housing targets; disputes over affordable housing in new development; NIMBY opposition to infrastructure, waste and energy projects; and the defence of countryside and habitat designations against intrusive development. Home ownership The dominance of home ownership is likely to continue. Residential property transactions dominate the land market, notwithstanding the recent recession: in England they numbered

Popn. 2006 61.0 51.1 3.0 5.1 1.8

Density 2006 250 390 143 66 128

Projected density 2056 324 521 165 67 153

Sources: Parliamentary Written Answers 18 February 2008, Population Trends (2009).

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1.7 million in 2006, fell to 900,000 in 2008, and are forecast to reach 700,000 in 2009 (LREW, 2008a). The benets of home ownership are conrmed by surveys. Households in areas categorised as afuent family, mature homeowning and afuent suburban and rural were most likely to be satised with their area and accommodation, while those living on council estates and low-income areas were least satised (Social Trends). Home-owner equity is an important source of credit (Smith and Searle, 2009). But despite encouragement by successive Governments, desire for home ownership appears to be in decline. A recent survey found that only 44 percent of 1825-year-olds favoured home ownership (contrasting with 75 percent of those over 55), and that respondents valued housing affordability and security ahead of ownership (Shelter, 2009). The division by age is also reected in statistics on older households: four-fths live in under-occupied homes (compared with a third of all households), and most lived in owner-occupied homes with over half owning outright. Of the population aged 2034, a third of men and a fth of women still live with their parents, the main reason being cited as the lack of affordable housing. The affordability of home ownership is challenged by the increase in mortgage repossessions (40,000 in 2008, expected to rise to 75,000 in 2009). In the previous housing recession repossessions peaked at 75,000 in 1991, and remained at around 50,000 for 5 years (Social Trends).

Adaptation of existing housing stock An under-supply of new housing will have consequences for the existing housing stock, as will the large contribution of housing to carbon emissions. Among these could be demographic changes: a reverse in the long-term decline in average household size; young people deferring leaving home, and more three-generation households, allowing grandparents to be resident child-carers while the middle generation goes out to work. Measures to reduce underoccupation, especially in older homes, can be expected. They might include scal incentives to older households to release equity for shared occupation and ownership; more collective housing forms (hostel accommodation for students and young adults, retirement communities); further tax incentives to let rooms in ones home; and attitudinal changes to lodging and multiple-generation households. Physical adaptation and intensication of the existing housing stock can be encouraged through planning policy measures, such as greater domestic permitted development rights; policies to allow larger extensions and conversion of existing buildings; greater diversity in the housing stock (e.g. through encouragement of eco-homes, experimental building forms and more underground space); and easier subdivision of larger plots. Current stresses within the rental housing market can be expected to result in greater regulation. The private rented sector has a diverse structure, with distinct sub-markets, comprising young professionals, students, housing benet claimants, slum rentals, tied housing (a diminishing sub-sector, mostly of agricultural workers), high-income renters (often in corporate lettings), immigrants, asylum-seekers, temporary accommodation, and a dwindling number of regulated tenancies (Rugg and Rhodes, 2008). State intervention in land ownership At present the land market (despite some limited exercise of compulsory purchase) depends upon willing sellers. There is widespread use of options pending planning permission for new development, while social objectives are partly met through Section 106 agreements and similar measures such as the new Community Infrastructure Levy. Development land shortages affect housing but also hinder more unpopular developments (e.g., energy generation, renewable or otherwise, waste disposal sites, transport infrastructure). Such shortages may focus attention back to the unequal distribution of land ownership. With land owners unwilling to release a parcel of land at a particular time, public sector agencies may resort to compulsory purchase to achieve adequate land supply. The costs can be reduced by alternative models for land assembly, such as land readjustment on continental European models (Home, 2007; LREW, 2003). Conclusions There is little political pressure to change land ownership structures at present, but this may not continue. Powerful forces are shrinking available development land, including the presence of large private owners, the need to protect countryside and habitats, and the management of ood risk. Conicts over land use allocation are increasing, and the planning system struggles to mediate in these disputes. Future population pressure and the accelerating impact of climate change may force drastic measures, such as increased state intervention to control and manage that scarce and dwindling basic resourceland. Such intervention may be a prerequisite for the successful management and security of other

Future supply of development land Surveys of public attitudes to property development in the UK reveal growing resistance to new development. Private housebuilding is opposed for reasons such as increased trafc, loss of green space, effect on community character, and reducing property values. The public is sceptical about government housing targets, with three-quarters of those surveyed saying that these were unrealistic. Government eco-town proposals were criticised as the most ineffective way to tackle the housing crisis (Saint Consulting, 2009). Pressure to protect ecosystems and environmental resources, combined with ood-risk restrictions, can be expected to restrict development land supply further in the future. The national target that at least 60 percent of new homes should be built on browneld land has been exceeded: the 2006 gure was 72 percent, up from 56 percent in 1997 (Land Use Change, 2008). Such levels are, however, unlikely to be maintained because of the infrastructure costs of servicing new sites. The governments house-building plans seem unlikely to be achieved for various reasons including the shrinking base of available development land, local opposition, and credit constraints on the house-building industry. Annual housing starts after 1970 reached a peak of 350,000 in 1972, falling to about 200,000 in the 1980s (the lowest being 160,000 in the recession of 199092), and were 204,000 in 2007/8. Annual social housing starts, over 100,000 through the 1970s, fell below 40,000 in the 1990s, and were 24,000 in 2007/8, suggesting an under-supply of over a million affordable units by 2016 (DCLG statistics). One response to the under-supply of new housing through the formal planning system could come from self-help provision, which is currently endorsed and supported internationally by De Soto (2000). While speculative subdivisions of land were a feature of the recent over-heated housing market (LREW, 2008c), the planning system keeps a tight grip upon housing land release through the local development framework and enforcement powers, making it unlikely that signicant housing gains will be achieved through self-help.

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