Take a look either side of this gate. There is no indication from the National Mistrust as to what the ‘innocuous’ brown pillars are for! All rather too 1984 & Edward Snowden for my liking B-)

High Quality audio with Roger and now sadly passed away director of the Shumacher Society Richard St George on one of Britain’s greatest ever Ecovillage design concepts
If the govt. was any good they’d have picked up on this

UK 2000 person autonomous ecovillage design 
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/69405

Who knows – perhaps someday someone will?
Tony

Roger Kelly HQ edited 00:49:40 128Kbps mp3
(47MB) Stereo

Schumacher socs Richard St George – on Ecoville 00:05:45 128Kbps mp3
(5MB) Stereo

UK 2000 person autonomous ecovillage design
Series: Bristol Broadband Co-operative 
Subtitle: Ecoville 2000 was a brilliant ecovillage design squashed by the UK government
Program Type: Weekly Program
Featured Speakers/Commentators: Roger Kelly former director of Machynlleth’s Centre for
Contributor: Bristol Broadband Co-operative  [Contact Contributor]
Broadcast Restrictions: For non-profit use only.
Summary: 
Credits: Ecoville 2000 was a giant ecovillage project developed at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales in the 1990s. Roger was director of CAT and one of the project leaders.
Notes: Ecovillage 2000 was the brainchild of two men at the Centre of Alternative Technology (CAT) in Machynlleth.
Roger Kelly was a pioneer of Housing Associations in the 1970’s. As director of Solon South-West he built and managed thousands of homes. Roger then moved to Wales, becoming director of CAT in 1988. Richard St. George was intent on putting the ideas of E.F. Schumacher into practice. Small is Beautiful, for Richard, marked the coming of age of the green movement. Specifically his emphasis on researching, designing and building the alternatives.
Richard and Roger had both been racking their brains over a dilemma. Small were acting as beautiful beacons for future sustainable development, but pioneering communities needed to be bigger to compete with the outside economy. The question was just how big?
The fundamental test of a community’s viability, Richard argued, is its ability to retain its teenagers and to enable people of all ages to to share positions of responsibility. strike a balance with everyone sharing the community’s positions of responsibility. So many times with Intentional Communities young people decided it wasn’t for them so many of them fled the nest after a generation or so they died out through being abandoned by their young people. What would keep them there would be a standard of living as good or better than the best civilisation has to offer combined with a real independent spirit
In the winter of 1994 Richard woke one morning to find himself snowed in. It looked like it might be several days until he found his way into work at CAT. A great time, he decided, to bite the bullet. Richard sat down and listed every service that we might expect in any civilised community: doctor, farmer, teacher, mechanic, builder, plumber, carpenter, printer, IT fixer, and the list went on… and on… and on.
Eventually it ran to over 220 roles under eleven headings, with a job description for each role. Agricultural; crafts; arts; sports; estate management; services; health; educational; commercial; technical and industrial. Over succeeding days for the two weeks he was snowed in, he worked out how many people, considering holidays, training, sickness, shift work, etc. would be need in each of these key roles. Children and the elderly would not be expected to do any work of course. He came up with a figure of each role needing from between one and 25 people to fill it.
[picture of ecoville house design] Meanwhile Roger was working on designs for the Ecohomes. Through his experience with the pitfalls of building social housing he decided on several constraints. Each family house would have an allotment sized portion of land immediately attached to it. Evidence in our cities is that if people have allotments adjacent they use them. But the price of urban land makes that very difficult to realise. Ecoville’s good sized gardens were for the family to use for growing, grazing or recreational space.
Then there was the density of housing. Roger knew that people tend to like living close to other families but not close to too many. He settled on ideal huddle of ten to twenty houses fairly close together, with the clusters being up to a kilometre from the village centre.
Each housing cluster would include individual houses (1), most with attached workshops; a building with communal facilities (2) such as a laundry, meeting room, boiler house or store for shared tools and equipment; and an area of horticultural land (3), providing principally for the residents’ own needs but also selling surplus produce.
The core of the design was the village centre – the existing farmhouse, outhouses and semi-derelict buildings (1-4). These fulfilled a dual function as accommodation for self-builders as the project was being constructed as well as fulfilling an ultimate function, with the addition of some new buildings (5) forming a central village square. Finally the village centre would contain workshops, an exhibition space, a café/bar and a small shop.
The acreage needed for the entire project would depend on what figure Richard came up with for the minimum viable population.
As snowbound Richard worked his figures through it became clear the figure would be higher than either of them had thought. When Richard eventually arrived for work at CAT he announced the magic number: two thousand. After totting up all the roles Richard looked at all the different reasons why a resident would not be able to fulfil that role. 25% were children, 10% elderly or infirm, 10% drop out, 10% away at university etc., 5% nursing mothers, 5% dad’s on paternity leave, 5% on holidays, sabbaticals and secondments leaving only 30% of residents as a workforce. This brought the number of roles needed, around 600 up to a figure of around 1000 total residents.
Under this figure residents were likely to have too much responsibility, Richard felt. Over 2000 would be too many for everyone to feel enfranchised. Once they were clear about the overall scale they started drawing up criteria, starting with water needs, with which to identify potential sites. 
The response from UK planning authorities was almost universally negative. No British local authorities would consider seriously allowing permission for Ecovillage 2000 in their patch so, rather than let planning constraints and land values kill the project, in 1997 they decided to focus their efforts abroad.
[map of the site in france] Eventually the team decided the best bet was to build it on a site in France with a highly supportive local authority. A farmer’s son who owned the site had no-one to take on his farm and wanted to retire, sell up. Ecovillage 2000 became Ecoville 2000. 
This was a mostly wooded site of several hundred hectares at Versels, Causse de Sauveterre in the Canton of Le Massegros, near where Roquefort cheese is produced. Here, the French government funded much of the Ecoville feasibility study which – 18 months after they first set foot on the land – cleared the way for planning permission to be granted. At this point the tale sadly ends, the farmer’s son changed his mind and his father decided not to sell the land.

THE LAND IS OURS

Questions or ideas? Please get in touch! Our email is mail@scottishlandactionmovement.org
http://www.scottishlandactionmovement.org/#backround-section

WE DEMAND…

1. A land information system
Currently only 26% of Scotland’s land is registered in the land register. To find out who owns what, we demand a mandatory system that is up to date and available to the public. 

2. A Land-Value Rating (LVT)
There is no taxation on just land itself. We demand a move towards a more progressive tax, that takes into account the value and use of the land. 

3. A cap on the amount of land any one private individual or beneficial interest is eligible to own 
Huge private estates leave the land empty and barren. We would like them community-owned or broken up through the establishment of a National Land Policy, and updated laws of succession.

4. Greater powers for communities to buy and own land 
Statutory rights of: registration of interest in land, pre-emption over land, and a right to buy land through a compulsory purchase order where there is a clear benefit to the community, both urban and rural.

5. Security for tenants in rented accommodation 
How we live on the land affects us all – secure tenancies for private renters ensure communities can flourish.

6. A robust self-build sector
We believe incentives to self-build homes can offer alternatives to current housing schemes and strengthen communities.

7. Rights for tenant farmers
Tenant farmers currently have very little security over their tenancies, leaving them vulnerable to huge rent increases and evictions. We demand protective legislation and an inquiry into an optional automatic right to buy.

8. Hutting
Hutting should be encouraged and facilitated by landowners and planning authorities to encourage rural leisure.

9. Greater governmental aid
Establish a distinct governmental unit that will facilitate community buyouts, advise ministers, and provide support services. Increase the Land Fund. 

10. Common Good lands
We demand that Common Good Lands be safeguarded, their management be democratic and modern, and information regarding Common Good lands and funds be readily available and up to date.

Look at our political structures, our economy, and our land, and you’ll find a fundamental lack of democracy. 

Our focus is land.  Who owns Scotland?  Very few.  Just 432 landowners have 50% of the privately owned land.  That’s a mere 0.008% of the population.

The causes for this extraordinary situation go back centuries – feudalism was only abolished in Scotland a decade ago – but the concentration of land ownership has actually increased in the last 50 years. 

The early years of the Scottish Parliament brought tentative progress in the form of the 2003 Land Reform (Scotland) Act; this legislation, with the provision of a Land Fund, encouraged a series of community buy-outs in rural areas.  These have shown how extraordinarily successful communities can be when they manage their own affairs; producing off-grid electricity, increasing tourism, boosting local jobs… developments essential to stop the disastrous trend of rural depopulation. 

But the case for much bolder, wider-reaching land reform never went away.  It was heard frequently during the referendum debate; increasingly recognised as a central issue for those calling for social justice, democracy and equality in Scotland. 

This isn’t just a rural issue.  Land reform in Scotland has its roots in the struggles of the 1800s to oppose clearances and establish crofters’ rights – but now it is much broader.  Soaring land values and monopoly control are what drive housing shortages, deprivation, urban blight.  Our city centres are full of half-empty hotels, stalled developments, overpriced and ugly student housing. 

Meanwhile rural communities decline further under – often absent – landowners; and vast swathes of the Highlands are set aside as playgrounds for the world’s richest, with troubling ecological and social consequences. This is an issue that affects everyone.

The Scottish Land Action Movement is a collective of activists all striving for the same goal – to deliver comprehensive and radical land reform in Scotland by 2016.

WHAT WE DO

We are a collective of activists all striving for the same goal – to deliver comprehensive and radical land reform in Scotland by 2016.
We believe that people-powered campaigning is the best way to do this. We have the backing of prominent researchers, journalists, activists and even politicians to help us reach our goal. However, it is the power of collective democracy that has founded this movement. Post-referendum Scotland is a place brimming full of passion and ideas – we believe there has never been a better time to fight for land reform, and with the support of a politicised nation, we can create a fairer and more just Scotland.

Our aim is simple – get enough people talking about our message, and change will happen.

We plan to provide a cohesive network for activists and campaign groups from all over the country to come together and learn from each other. We have a library of resources of all varieties so people can educate themselves on the topic of land reform, reaching far beyond just lairds in their castles. Land reform is just as important to communities in central Glasgow as it is to communities in the Western Isles, and the more knowledge we have about these issues, the more power we can wield in affecting change. 

If you would like to set up a campaign or group, we will help you in whatever way we can with the resources at our disposal. 

If you would like to contribute to our movement, our blog will be showcasing stories of communities in action, of campaigns, and examples of community ownership successes. Even just telling us why you think land reform is important – we want to hear from you!

Over the coming months we will be setting up petitions and meetings – please follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook to receive up-to-date information.
 

Questions or ideas? Please get in touch! Our email is mail@scottishlandactionmovement.org

http://rt.com/op-edge/228295-bitter-lake-dangerous-tv/

By Tamara Cohen for the Daily Mail 10 Nov 2010
More than a third of Britain’s land is still in the hands of a tiny group of aristocrats, according to the most extensive ownership survey in nearly 140 years.
In a shock to those who believed the landed gentry were a dying breed, blue-blooded owners still control vast swathes of the country within their inherited estates.
A group of 36,000 individuals – only 0.6 per cent of the population – own 50 per cent of rural land…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1328270/A-Britain-STILL-belongs-aristocracy.html

1974 Harold Wilson’s Labour election manifesto:

‘The Government have published plans for the public owner ship of development land which will get rid of the major inflationary element in the cost of building;
for public control and participation in North Sea oil;
for greater accountability and the extension of public ownership in industry;
for beginning the redistribution of wealth by new taxation on the better-off…… ‘
http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/man/lab74oct.htm

Harold Wilson plot, Treason & Conspiracy by MI5, 1968 Coup plot, 1976 Resignation 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG6FR03BqIQ
Yes two top BBC journalists Penrose and Courtieur were steered out into the long grass by the powers that be.
In 1975 Britain’s last honest Prime Minister, Harold Wilson was bugged, burgled bullied and hounded out of office by fascist, even Nazi, elements within MI5, the army and establishment who smeared him as a Russian KGB agent. As for books on this subject the best in order are as follows:
‘The Pencourt File’ by Barrie Penrose & Roger Courtiour (1978)
‘Smear!: Wilson and the Secret State’ by Stephen Dorril & Robin Ramsey (1992)
‘The Wilson Plot: How the Spycatchers and Their American Allies Tried to Overthrow the British Government’ (1988) by David Leigh

http://rt.com/uk/197120-britain-protest-pay-rise/

Written in 2010, by James Armstrong, Dorchster
Contact: james36armstrong@hotmail.com

reC.A.P., – TO  CAP IT OR SCRAP IT?
 
 
The Common Agricultural Policy costs U.K. taxpayers some £3.8bn per annum.
It does not benefit ‘small’ farmers nor agricultural workers 
It is a serious threat to democracy and welfare. It should be scrapped .  The least we can do is to cap  the expenditure at a means tested amount equivalent to claimants receiving  £12,344 per annum  – the minimum wage.
 
For an every-day example by which to judge the purchasing power of £1billion we can use the cost of the 12 new detached houses with garages built by a team of self builders in St Minver Cornwall and completed in 2008.  for a cost of  some £80,000 each.
£1million would buy twelve and a half such houses and £1 billion some 12,500 so £3.8billion would fund  the building of 47,500 new houses.  
 T his gives a measure of the annual cost of CAP. Payments to   UK taxpayers in money expended and benefit forgone. .
 
The origin of CAP. (Ritson and Harvey)
The European Union was to be a means of political unification and a guarantee for peace following the resolution of the world war.
(during the  in negotiations leading to the Treaty of Rome 1958) the attitude of  the French government and the French farm lobby  were of crucial significance in the establishment of the C.A,P.   just as Germany played a   leading role in directing the industrial policy.
 
The Treaty of Rome set the agenda for  the C.A,.P..
The Treaty  talks of,
“a fair standard of living for the agricultural  community  in particular  increasing the  earnings of persons engaged in agriculture.” 
 
The background to UK agriculture
The C.A.P. effectively transferred  money from industrial workers  (mostly  Germans )  via taxes  to fund C.A,P. payments to farmers (mostly French) . When Britain joined in 1973 owing to the nature of landownership in UK , CAP payments in large tranches were received by the very  small constituency which is the British Landowning group- some
One  per cent of the population.  The historical tendency in UK has been for farms to amalgamate by  enclosure, by  engrossment and by industiralisation  of farming techniques.by emparkment etc.
 
The Underlying principle of CAP
It was established when CAP came into being that producers  should receive a price determined by market forces   but that these market forces should be controlled so that prices fluctuated only between pre-determined upper and lower limits.  So that farmers were protected from excessively low and consumers from excessively high prices. The most basic CAP support scheme is for cereals .   All others a re a variation of this.
 
 
The second major component of the cereals regime is the import controls since world prices are often lower than EU prices.  I t would be worthwhile in the absence of controls to import, so imports are controlled by licence  and import duty must be paid.
 
 
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS PRICES IN E.C. AS % OF WORLD PRICES (=100%)
                         E.C.,1994%      highest%
Common wheat         155             155
Maize                         140             211
Barley                         214            218
Rice                            209             209
White sugar                106             137
Milk                            241             259
Beef / veal                   208             208
Pig meat                      130             134
Poultry                         118             161
Sheep meat                  156             243
 
Who receives CAP payments?
The client group is heterogeneous including landowners, food manufacturers, agribusinesses , pheasant breeders,  racing stables , farmers, pony paddock owners, donkey sanctuaries, racehorse trainers’ gallops, wildlife trusts, fishing clubs ,etc
 
 
 
 
 
THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL EFFECT OF C.A.P.
The Benefits and cost of CAP versus free trade (Ritson & Harvey p 165)
 
                          Billion ECU ( U.K. ) 1994
                                                                            Interpretation ?
Producers gain                 3.82          (CAP payments received by ‘farmers’
Users cost                         4.31          (cheaper food prices foregone by consumers)
Taxpayers cost                 2.51          ( UK contribution to EU to fund CAP payments )
Net Welfare cost              3.01           ( CAP on balance is a cost not a benefit)
Bridge Trade Effect        -3.31           ( an allowance for the distortion of free trade)
                                      
Analysis
 
In the  following analysis The figures are taken and processed from the information available on the web site
www.cap-payments.defra. gov.uk
 
 
. 
Reducing the annual CAP payouts
For comparison ,the statutory  minimum wage    at £5.93per hour yields £12,334 p a for a 40 hour 52 week year
Using this as a guide  between ‘low’ and ‘high’ C.A.P-income receivers the following analysis emerges for the year 2009 .
At present (2009) 197,346 claimants receive  a total of   £3,426,076,230 costs push this up to £3.8bn) 
The high  claimants
65,991 receive   greater than   £12,334, – in total  £2,993,905,590 average £45,468
If they were ineligible ( cut off point at £12,334, ) the savings would be £2,993,905,590
If they received the  minimum wage equivalent, they would receive  £813,932,994, saving £2,179,972,596  (some £2.2bn)
The low  claimants
At present (2009) 131,427 receive  less than  £12,334,  in total  £434,158,342 , average  £3,303
 
CAP reserved for those now claiming £12,334 or less 
If all now receiving  less CAP than the minimum wage were upgraded to the min wage
And those claiming above this sum were ineligible the cost would be £1,621,020,618
And the savings £1,805,055,612
 
CAP as a fixed payment to all qualifying claimants . large and small.
If the statutory payment was  the minimum wage equivalent
For 197,346 receiving  £12,334 the cost would be £2,434,065,564,saving £992,010,666
 
THE MACRO ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF C.A.P. ON LAND VALUES
Ritson and Harvey write,
“The Producers’ gain is a measure of the economic rent earned by factors engaged in agriculture over and above that which could be earned in the  absence of the policy intervention.
In the case where all the factors and inputs except land are available to agriculture in perfect elasticity of supply (that is the prices and returns of these factors and inputs do not change whatever the  agricultural output  and use levels) theory suggests that all of the policy benefits will accumulate to rents and agricultural values of land .
So the figure is a measure of the annual gain to landowners .
In practice the assumption of perfect elasticity of supply is extreme. Some fraction  of the gain would be expected to accrue to owners of other factors specifically associated with the industry including those upstream of the farm gate”
R and H seem to mean that CAP payments cause land values to rise. 
 A marked increase in the price of agricultural land has been noticeable  since the introduction of CAP, resulting from feeding in £billion  CAP grants each year over thirty three years. .  
 
 
 
 
 
WHO RECEIVES C.A.P.PAYMENTS ?
.
 
annual payments go to –
     Lord Carrington          £149,000
     Lord Linlithgow          £ 144,000
      Lord Rothermere        £29,000
 to-    M.P.s  ,    Richard Drax ,M.P.,  £417,846
To dukes….to earls…. To Prince Charles £581,000
To their  trade association , NFU, £70,000
 
HM Queen received  £1,183,508 over the last two years for privately owning the Sandrigham estate.
Two thousand get more than the Prime Minister’s annual salary,
The regime is not designed to  benefit struggling ‘small’ farmers since the majority of funds go to large agricultural holdings.  Large plc corporations receive £multimillion payments 
It has nothing to do with food security – Owners of one million pony paddock acres  qualify for some £30million.  Preserving the countryside and the wildlife  is the business of Defra and  the RSPB-not CAP –  (yet that Charity with a £15million membership fund gets an additional £1million from CAP annually).
 
Thousands of  claimants are already landowning millionaires
.
WHO PAYS – HOW MUCH- WHO GETS WHAT- WHY?
CAP  is not funded  by EU but out of UK taxes and costs the British taxpayer £3.8 to £4billion in 2009.
This is an increase of  23 per cent over 2008  and in 2010 will increase again, and in 2011
Some 80% of UK citizens live in urban settings. Some 99% of UK citizens own no bulk land and do not qualify for CAP payments.  
From their taxes, moistly income tax, these non qualifiers  fund CAP.
and this is largely unknown to them.
CAP is not rational.
CAP does not fulfil the rationale of the Treaty of Rome,  In UK  the number employed in agriculture has fallen by 1million  and agricultural workers are amongst the lowest paid in the land.  Those farmers on the lowest incomes receive the least benefit from CAP and the increase in incomes of large corporate  farms threatens their existence from buy outs.
The increase in land values proves a barrier to  new entrants to farming.
 
In the past CAP has caused overproduction and waste of food.
Food prices within the EU are  higher than world prices. CAP related EU  Tariffs are a barrier to  exports from third world countries.
EU exports of foodstuffs at subsidised prices threaten the livelihoods of third world producers.   
 
 
CAP  IS ANTI DEMOCRATIC
Access to the orginators of CAP policy is severely restricted and they are not democratically accountable.
 
CAP budget is set by the  Directorate  General for the  EU Budget
Agriculture policy by the   Agricultural  D.G.
The Council for Europe is the major legislative  body of the EU.
 
CAP IS ANTI- WELFARE
The CAP is a regressive tax paid mostly out of income tax to reward the wealthy and privileged . CAP has  increased the price of food.
 
CAP HAS INCREASED LAND COSTS FOR NEW HOUSES   
 
ABOLISHING / SEVERELY REDUCING THE COST AND EFFECTS OF CAP
Britain is a valued member of the EU.   The workings of CAP as shown above are not rational, not democratic and have a negative welfare effect.  It is necessary as a minimum measure , to severely reduce the burden and the effects of C.A.P. for UK citizens .
This can be achieved by the co-operation of the E.U. or unilaterally by UK if necessary by reducing pro rata the UK contribution to EU or reconsideration of our role within EU.
 
 
References :
 
The Common Agricultural Policy, 2nd Ed .  Edited by  Ritson and Harvey 
www.cap-payments.defra.gov.uk
 
James Armstrong  August 2010 .

asury in a written correspondence; puzzling however how the figure quoted of £10.3 billion was ommitted from the Annual Abstract of Statistics by the ONS). After explaining the origins of CAP and how the new system of Single-Farm Payments (reformed from the previous system of production-subsidies) still rewards the largest landowners, this time quite unashamedly in accordance of land-area, he went onto a discussion around the subject of comparing this situation with the original objective of what CAP actually stands for – which was to “reward agricultural-workers”

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Diggers350/conversations/topics/2860

On Saturday 12th July 2014 The Land Is Ours in conjunction with Bristol Housing Action Movement presents………

Former Sunday Times ‘Rich List’ journalist Kevin Cahill is the author of ‘Who Owns Britain’. Beginning at 1pm he will discuss & explain the inequalities of land ownership in the British Isles and former empire. After a break at 2pm Kevin will answer your questions. Venue opens for refreshments at 12 noon… social until 5-6pm.

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