15.1 Introduction

Over the years there have been many debates as to whether alternative forms of land ownership can offer a better way of ensuring that society achieves certain objectives from the land. The principle behind arguments for public ownership is simple: full control leaves society free to determine fully whatever land use is preferred. Government need not be constrained by the need to generate a profit or to make a living, as is a private owner, and public ownership brings the flexibility to allocate, invest in and use the land so as to maximise social benefit; but as we have already noted in Chapter 3, the practice is more complicated.

In this chapter, we reflect on a number of debates and policy initiatives that have proposed changes in the nature of land ownership, both nationalisation and privatisation. We particularly consider the cases of National Nature Reserves and forestry, where public land ownership has persisted despite the widespread privatisation in other sectors. These issues have covered all of the major rural land-use sectors of agriculture, forestry, environmental conservation and community development.

15.2 Public land ownership in the countryside

Despite the assiduous search for saleable public assets since the 1980s, as noted in Chapter 3, some significant areas of rural land do continue to be held in the public sector. Notable among these are the Forestry Commission, holding around a million hectares in the UK, and the Ministry of Defence with nearly a quarter of a million. If we exclude areas of land held for specific non-rural purposes, such as land for military training, the major landholdings are represented by smallholdings owned by county councils, forest land held by the Forestry Commission, and National Nature Reserves often held by the nature conservation agencies.