There is a moment, familiar to anyone who has ever driven through the English lowlands at dusk, when the hedgerows close in, the church spire pricks the sky, and the illusion of permanence feels almost tangible. Somewhere in that landscape a farmer is standing at his kitchen window, mug of builder’s tea cooling in his hand, watching a council officer walk up the lane with a compulsory-purchase notice in his briefcase.
This is no Victorian melodrama. It is the direct and foreseeable consequence of Labour’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill — a 150-clause juggernaut that completed its final Parliamentary skirmish in the House of Lords on November 24th 2025 and now awaits only Royal Assent in early December.
The Government presents the legislation as the long-overdue antidote to decades of planning paralysis — the indispensable fix if Britain is to deliver 1.5 million homes this Parliament and achieve clean power by 2030. Housing Secretary Steve Reed repeats the mantra “getting Britain building again” with the weary conviction of a man who has never laid a brick in anger, insisting the reforms will unlock growth without “selling out” communities or the natural world. The official factsheets speak of “fair compensation rather than inflated prices” and a “win-win” for the economy and the environment. The language is soothing. The reality is not.
Tucked away in clauses 83 to 92 of Part 5 is a provision that fundamentally rewrites the rules of compulsory purchase. Local authorities — district councils, county councils, even parish councils in certain circumstances — may now acquire land, including some of the most productive farmland in Europe, at “existing use” value, typically £8,000 to £13,500 an acre for prime arable. Once planning permission is secured, the same land can be resold at ‘hope’ value — anything from £500,000 to £1.5 million an acre, often far more. The uplift goes neither to the Treasury nor to the dispossessed farmer. It lands, unring-fenced, in the council’s bank account. There is no duty to audit it, no obligation to spend it locally, and no legal barrier to diverting it elsewhere. In the wrong hands — and many councils are now hundreds of millions in the red — that is not a windfall. It is an invitation. Ministers insist forthcoming statutory guidance will require “fair and reasonable” use of the power and some sharing of uplift with local communities, but as presently drafted the Bill imposes no statutory duty to do so, and no ring-fencing or audit requirement whatsoever....<<<Read More>>>...
