When I started this blog back in August, I didn’t expect it to generate the interest that it has. But I’ve been constantly blown away by the number of readers, retweets, media interest and, most of all, kind offers of help. My thanks to everyone who’s read and contributed to this blog over these past months – and particularly to two contributors who wanted to remain anonymous, but who have done a huge amount to help me obtain and crunch through data on who owns England.

A new year’s a good time to take stock, so I thought I’d do a summary of what I’ve found out so far, and follow that up with a taster of investigations yet to come.

What do we now know about Who owns England?

We now know that:

So what’s next?

Rest assured there is much, much more to come. So here’s a sneak peek at some of the investigations and blog posts I’ve got underway:

I’m hoping to share with you a map of all the land ownership data I’ve gathered so far – the most comprehensive map of land ownership in England yet built.

Who owns England’s uplands? I’ve been given funding by Chapter 7 / The Land Is Ours to construct a complete map of land ownership of the English uplands. This will build on previous investigations into grouse moors and water utilities. The uplands are a fascinating and heavily contested part of the English landscape: who owns and manages them is of great importance to reducing flooding, protecting species, and combatting climate change. Yet they are owned by a vanishingly small number of people and organisations.

I’ve been given funding by Chapter 7 / The Land Is Ours to construct a complete map of land ownership of the English uplands. This will build on previous investigations into grouse moors and water utilities. The uplands are a fascinating and heavily contested part of the English landscape: who owns and manages them is of great importance to reducing flooding, protecting species, and combatting climate change. Yet they are owned by a vanishingly small number of people and organisations. Who owns the land most sought-after for housebuilding? And is landbanking by certain firms and individuals driving up house prices?

And is landbanking by certain firms and individuals driving up house prices? Who owns our best-quality agricultural land? And is it being used wisely, or wasted?

And is it being used wisely, or wasted? What land is owned by councils? This one’s gonna take a lot of work to pull together, but a group of kind volunteers have offered to help out.

This one’s gonna take a lot of work to pull together, but a group of kind volunteers have offered to help out. What do the Royals own? I’ll be picking apart the ancient landholdings of the Crown Estate, the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, and the Queen’s private estates.

Onwards into 2017 – and to answering the question of who owns England!