Crichel Down : The State as Landlord
In 1939 the Air Ministry compulsorily puichased from three owners at Crichel Down in Dorset- 700 acres for use as a bomb- ing range. Three years ago this area, cleared at last of bombs, was sold to the Ministry of Agriculture and farmed thereafter by the Dorset agricultural executive committee. It was at this point that the former owners began their attempts to buy back the land. The case of Lieutenant-Commander George Marten is illuminating. On behalf of his wife he applied to buy back 330 acres and return it to the farm from which it had originally been taken. His application was refused by the Land Commissioner at Taunton. He then entered on a long and exasperating negotiation with the Ministry, only to be told about seventeen months later that the Ministry was com- mitted in the matter to the Commissioners of Crown Lands. After 'a further period of frustration he was told by the Permanent Commissioner that he could neither buy nor rent the land, because the Commissioners were committed to the Ministry to erect a farmhouse, cottages and other buildings, and to let this new (and, as many would say, unnecessary) holding to a tenant who had already. been selected. (Con- trary to a promise given by the Land Commissioner to another applicant, the land was not advertised in the Press before being let.) The rent of this new holding, it is understood, will be more than double that of surrounding lands. " Here we have the State as landlord," said Lieutenant-Commander Marten at a protest meeting last week, " wedging themselves into our lands, and setting up a rent standard of over double the present level. Can landlords be blamed if they follow suit ? " They certainly cannot be blamed if they lose their temper, for three years of fighting a fog is an exasperating business. The landowners concerned have no technical right to this land which used to be theirs, but their moral claim to be considered at least could hardly be stronger; and it is everybody's business when the State as landlord is seen to behave in a manner which would be outrageous in a private individual.
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