It was never about "building infrastructure", though, which is why they used Compulsory Purchase to force farmers to sell their land for pennies. Because obviously "undeveloped" land without any sort of planning consent is worth very little.
Now those bits of land, which have been put through the planning system and can now be built on, are not being used for HS2. So, they're being sold back to the farmers, right?
No, they're being sold for thousands of times the purchase price to property developers run by the people who donate the most to the government.
It's a land grab, same as the "inheritance tax on farms" thing.
>>though, which is why they used Compulsory Purchase to force farmers to sell their land for pennies. Because obviously "undeveloped" land without any sort of planning consent is worth very little.
Did you ever look into any of it? Because it's 100000% nonsense. One of the reasons why HS2 is over budget so much is because farmers are being paid absolutely through the nose for smallest chunks of land taken for it. Compulsory purchase has to pay the market rate, and in most cases it pays well above that.
>>No, they're being sold for thousands of times the purchase price to property developers run by the people who donate the most to the government.
I'd love to see an example of any piece of land being sold for "thousands of times the purchase price", it would be quite incredible. And the land goes back to auction, anyone can bid on it so not sure how exactly is it sold to "people who donate the most" - care to explain? Or better yet, give an example?
>>It's a land grab, same as the "inheritance tax on farms" thing.
Yes, nothing to do with people like the Percy family owning half of Northumerland for the last 700 years and never paying any inheritance tax on it because they farm on some of it. Nuh huh.
It was never about "building infrastructure", though, which is why they used Compulsory Purchase to force farmers to sell their land for pennies. Because obviously "undeveloped" land without any sort of planning consent is worth very little.
Now those bits of land, which have been put through the planning system and can now be built on, are not being used for HS2. So, they're being sold back to the farmers, right?
No, they're being sold for thousands of times the purchase price to property developers run by the people who donate the most to the government.
It's a land grab, same as the "inheritance tax on farms" thing.