As Christmas 2025 approaches Royal Assent will be given to a Labour Government Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Those green fields, tended by generations of hard working farmers are under threat. Hedge rows will disappear, the fencing will be erected and the diggers will roll in to carve up those fertile soils into housing estates. As you read this article take note; Labour led Sefton Council have a current target of building 578 dwellings per year .Now, under a Labour Government this will have to rise to 1466 per year for the next five years. And where will they build those houses....on farmland of course.
Make no mistake. Our farmland is under massive threat from the Labour Government. One only has to drive around the district to observe the massive house building projects that are covering what was once agricultural land.
The increasing use of farmland threatens our food security by reducing our domestic ability to provide food for the population. We will increasingly become more reliant on importing food making us more vulnerable to overseas supply chains and volatility of world markets.
Figures from CPRE (The Countryside Charity) released the following data.
More than 1,700 farms on the outskirts of English towns and cities have disappeared since 2010, according to a groundbreaking report by CPRE, the countryside charity. The report shows that urban-area agricultural land – capable of feeding communities and providing environmental benefits – is disappearing quickly.
This loss totals 56,000 hectares of farmland, similar in size to Leeds, impacting food security and environmental sustainability. While the areas studied in the report represent just 11.3% of UK agricultural land, they produce an outsize proportion of foods including wheat (20.6%), oats (20.6%), barley (20%), potatoes (14.3%) and milk (13.3%).
These farms provide food security, act as green buffers supporting ecosystems, reduce food miles, and contribute £3.3 billion annually to the UK economy. No fields, no farms no food. We will be more and more reliant on imported food. Food prices rise, as our self sufficiency becomes a thing of the past. In the 1980s food self-sufficiency for our country was calculated at 78%, today it estimated to be 62% . By 2050 it will fall by almost a third, adding £10 billion annually to our import costs. Those foods will probably be imported from countries which have lower standards of animal welfare than we do and the transportation costs will do nothing to reduce the carbon footprint.
At the present time Labour is driving through Parliament a Planning and Infrastructure Bill. A document of 150 clauses, which has now finished its time in Parliament and is awaiting Royal Assent in the early part of December.
Labour want to get “ Britain Building Again” and this Bill will unlock growth and deliver the 1.5 million homes that Labour promised in their manifesto. Apparently it is a “win win “for our environment and our economy.
Closer inspection of Part 5 , in clauses 83 to 92 it would appear that the rules appertaining to compulsory purchase have been rewritten. Local Authorities may now acquire land, including some of the most productive farmland, essential for food production, at a price that they call existing value. Typically this is £8,000 to £15,300 an acre for prime arable land. But, once planning permission is given the land can be sold at “hope value” which is anything from £500,000 to £1.5 million an acre. This “uplift” in value is then gained by the local authority, not the farmer or the Treasury. There is no duty to ring fence this money , no duty to audit and no obligation to spend it locally and therefore no barrier to diverting it elsewhere.
Cash strapped local authorities will view this opportunity with glee. Buying land and selling it at an increased price to house builders solves all their problems. They meet the Labour Government’s target for new homes, they reduce their debts and new homes increase Council Tax Revenue.
Some farmers faced with dealing with a large Inheritance Tax Bill from HMRC will find their Local Authority only too keen to buy farmland to settle that outstanding Bill. Once one or two fields have been lost to housing estates, more will follow. As our fields disappear, so do the symbols of our cultural heritage, the pub closes, the Church is “mothballed” and eventually is turned into flats. A Harvest Festival is reduced to a definition in a dictionary. A long sprawl of housing estates takes the place of green productive fields. As buildings replace soil, the soil loses half of its ability to absorb rainwater. The result ....flooding, sandbags and higher insurance premiums for householders.
Interestingly a Freedom of Information request has revealed that dozens of house builders enjoyed more ministerial meetings in four months than the National Farmers Union had been given during this entire Labour Government.
This Bill carefully crafted does much more. It also “fast tracks” Nationally Significant Infrastructure projects. These are projects such as solar battery storage facilities on BMV (Best and Most Versatile ) farmland – the top 20% of England’s soil. In July 2025 The Council for The Preservation of Rural England found that 59% of the largest solar farms approved since 2020 had been built on productive agricultural land.
We have all experienced the feeling of glancing up at a clock and wondering “where did the day go?” Now we need to ask “where did all the farms go?” There is now a growing concern that our farmland, farmed since Saxon times is under massive threat. Our food security, the loss of our cultural heritage and the rural landscape is being exploited and we are powerless to do anything about it. Labour’s building blitz is destined to destroy our villages and small towns and replacing them with a concrete jungle of “little boxes” on what was once fertile land.
