Reimagining land for a more abundant Britain.
Why land
Land is key to economic growth and equality of opportunity, yet in Britain we've done almost nothing in decades to unlock our most limited resource.
Given that so many of our biggest challenges stem from how land is owned, regulated, and used, it's time we viewed land with fresh eyes to spark an era of abundance and shared prosperity.
What an evening looks like
Each evening features six sharp, informative and inspirational lightning talks, backed by stories or data. Expect:
Throughout the evening, you'll have plenty of time to connect with others passionate about a brighter tomorrow and to dig deeper into the land-related topics that catch your imagination.
From the archive
Dozens of brilliant speakers have given talks. To give a flavour, here are three of them, chosen at random:
Luna Mustfa
After feudalism, land became a new currency of power and pride – and its depiction in oil painting reflected that shift. Luna explores how the wealthy used art to project abundance – from plump livestock to sweeping estates – and how changes in land ownership have both shaped and mirrored evolving symbols of status over the centuries.
Jim Stichbury
One man's journey though Scotland's tiny-living market revealed both a compelling lifestyle and frustrating obstacles. Find out why Jim walked away from log cabin life and what it tells us about missed rural regeneration and outdated land-use policies.
Paul Downey
The Service Owner of planning.data.gov.uk describes the “planning data flywheel”. Paul sheds light on the importance and value of planners, and their undervalued role in shaping our world.
Ben Dunn-Flores
Renting was once one option among many. Today, it's the only option for most. Ben charts how soaring housing prices and well-intentioned judges trapped four million households and what must change for renting to stand shoulder to shoulder with homeownership.
Martin Keegan
Whether you own or rent a flat, you'll often have problems caused by a the collective management arrangements. Martin unpicks some of the different forms of block ownership and management, how to get out of them, and who can help.
Mark Williams
The Ministry of Defence holds vast areas of prime land hostage, much seized during WW2 but never returned. Discover how releasing just a fraction of it today could unlock thousands of new homes, create iconic country parks, all without threatening national security.
Alys Key
Out in Yellowstone, Kevin Costner's cowboy John Dutton bends every rule, even snagging the governorship, to stop resorts, pipelines and YIMBY-friendly condos. Alys flips the Hollywood script, asking why the show paint builders and planners as existential threats, and what can that teach British reformers about messaging, trust and winning hearts?
Lauren Thomas
The data doesn't lie: Britain's housing squeeze is real and it's tightening fast. Lauren charts how Britain's housing crisis went from manageable to suffocating and paints a stark picture of where we're heading if we stay on our current path.
Jane Dowden
What does having a home really mean – and what breaks when people lose that foundation? Jane surveyed frontline homelessness workers nationwide, revealing the crushing pressures they face and the structural barriers to progress. How can we get everyone safe, secure and suitable housing, by supporting both homeless people and those who work to help them?
James O'Malley
Britain's tangled address data regime quietly blocks thousands of innovations before they even start. James reveals how the Postcode Address File became a costly gatekeeper to a more abundant Britain and what it will take to set this vital data free.
Tim Kershaw
In Spain, a single architect's rubber stamp can turn an olive grove into a skyline. Tim sets this turbo-charged system against Britain's planning slog, weighing its virtues – speed, agility and productivity – against its darker flipside: scant oversight that has historically fuelled white-collar crime, putting mayors, architects and developers behind bars.
Alastair Parvin
Unaffordable homes, stalled schemes, rent-fuelled poverty and slow-motion climate collapse – they all stem from one contradiction: we treat homes both as places to live and as assets to make money from. Alastair shows how this contradiction warps every corner of the economy, and sketches-out Fairhold, a new form of land ownership that replaces land speculation with stewardship.
Fabian Chessell
Appointed by the Deputy PM to build thousands of prison cells, Fabian quick hit a cast of unexpected soap opera-style villains: endless rare species surveys, mad playing field consultees and more. Years later, with early releases grabbing headlines, Fabian lays what went wrong how to fix the finale.
Euan Mills
How much space does one house occupy? Now imagine 300,000 of them – the number we need per year – and suddenly the question of where they'll fit becomes impossible to ignore. Euan takes us on a visual journey through different housing types, from sprawling suburbs to compact terraces, and asks us to re-imagine the sorts of towns and cities we want to build.
Amber Richardson
WikiHouse is an open-source construction system that lets people download, cut, and assemble modular building components to create affordable, sustainable housing. Amber introduces us to WikiHouse and shares how a decade of collaboration has refined the system into an intuitive, modular toolkit used worldwide today.
Benedict Springbett
Judicial Review was designed to keep government power within the bounds of the law – not to stall housing, infrastructure and regeneration. Benedict unpacks how we got here, whether Judicial Review itself really is the problem, and how smarter rules could unlock abundance, without compromising justice.
Matthew Bornholt
In Japan, most homes are self-built, treated like consumer goods and development is permissive. The result: affordable house prices, but with ugly skylines and a constant need to fund re-building. Matthew gives a rapid tour of Japan's land system and asks what Britain might learn from the land of the rising sun.
Bonnie VandeSteeg
Scotland's beautiful landscapes mask fierce battles – from anglers vs paddlers to local interests vs distant conservationists. Bonnie explores these tensions, how they led her to the People's Land Policy and how the reforms would give communities greater control over their land.
Eric Wycoff Rogers
When Eric arrived in London, the city told him to “drink or go home”. Instead, he chose to build a cosy, sober, nightclub. Then the land bouncers appeared: rent and a booze-centred rulebook. Eric tells his story, lifting the lid on the scrappy business model hacks that make the Night Cafe viable – a rare win against the land system's gravity.
Shiv Malik
Forest City pitches something Britain hasn't done for 50 years: build a brand-new city. East of Cambridge, it would house nearly a million residents, with a 12,000-acre forest as its green heart. People would buy homes, but the land wouldn't be up for speculation, baking in permanent affordability. Shiv unpacks the plan, the setbacks so far, and the many hurdles ahead.
Sinead Doyle
An eviction is less of a verdict and more a relay race of notices, evidence, hearings, adjournments and missed deadlines. Sinead maps the relay with real stories from landlords, tenants, judges and councils, revealing how mundane bottlenecks create extraordinary harm. The good news: many are fixable; repair the process, and you unlock certainty, dignity and fairness.
Andrew Purves
Singapore is often cited as proof you can stop land wealth hardening into permanent inequality – usually with a knowing nod to Henry George's “single tax”. Plot twist: myth. Singapore's real magic is a British colonial leasehold system, upgraded over decades to keep land windfalls on a leash. Andrew reveals the trick – and why the results stick.
Maria Brewster
When Greece needed to house millions, it didn't build council homes – it offered asset-rich, but cash-poor landowners a unique land-for-flats deal. This alchemy sent ownership soaring and reined in sprawl – but at the cost of patchy construction, scant greenery and a concrete legacy. Maria weighs the trade-offs and asks what, if anything, Britain should copy.
Andrew Dixon
Council Tax is the undead love-child of the poll tax and domestic rates system: patched up, never revalued, and regressively feeding on households every year. Financier and campaigner, Andrew, drags this fiscal ghoul into the daylight, explains why every government has dodged putting it out of its misery, and lays out a silver bullet that could finally put fairness back into property taxation.
Sebastian Vetterlein
Cities weren't built for cars – they just moved in, never paying fair rent. Sebastian traces how cars colonised our streets, explores how we sleepwalked into subsidising their storage on prime public land, and asks a provocative question: what if every parking space went to auction? Could a restaurant's terrace, a florist or even a pocket garden outbid parking for space?
Chris Moore
The UK has some of the highest construction costs in the world. But why? Wages? Materials? Or something deeper? Chris digs into the dynamics of Britain's construction market – from the price of a brick to how we procure entire buildings. The answer matters, because you can't build your way to prosperity if building itself is broken.
Tym Syrytczyk
Robotaxis promise a lot: parks instead of park-and-rides, safer roads, cleaner air. But they need a lot too: depots, chargers, drop-off zones and somewhere to lurk between rides. Tym maps what US cities are learning the hard way onto Britain and asks: what must we get right for robotaxis to deliver on their potential?
Bilal Asghar
For years, Londoners quietly did something lovely: left books for each other on the Tube. Then one morning, London banned book-sharing. On fire safety grounds. Books, it turns out, are flammable. Bilal tells the inside story of how acts of community fell foul of regulations never really meant for them, and what the saga teaches us about making room for creativity in our shared infrastructure.
Michael Taite
Michael believes Britain's housing crisis is really a trust crisis. People resist development because they've got every reason to. The government's reforms – lowering standards, mandating densities, overriding local plans – risk deepening that problem, not solving it. If he's right, stripping away safeguards doesn't build homes; it builds barricades. Michael reframes the debate and teases a different starting point.
Savva Pistolas
Hotels have them. Restaurants have them. Even dog walkers have them. But landlords, to whom millions of Britons hand over their single largest monthly payment, don't. Savva lays bare renting's information imbalance, where landlords demand guarantees but tenants can't return the favour, and introduces the platform he's building to even the score. The twist? It's partnership, not code, that's the hard part.
Isabelle Castro
Off Singapore, Forest City was meant to house 700,000 people on four man-made islands. When the Chinese funding dried-up, it became a ghost town. Then Silicon Valley moved in. Isabelle tells the inside story of Network School – the insular tech enclave that turned a failed land experiment into its laboratory – and asks what it teaches us about land, innovation and community.
Ted Theisinger
England's on a small, crowded island with little room. Or is it? The Land Use Framework – four years in the making, two governments in the writing – claims there's enough land for homes, food, nature and solar. Ted introduces it and asks whether a document that cannot direct a single planning decision is a bold new vision, or just Whitehall's latest ruse to change nothing.
Emma Kernahan
People walked, foraged and picnicked in Stroud's Heavens Valley for generations — but only at a private landowner's discretion. When the land came up for sale, a pub meeting became a campaign, and the campaign raised a record £850,000 to buy all 102 acres. Emma shares what happened when permission became ownership and the flourishing of community campaigns Stroud has since inspired.
Maurice Lange
Britain's planning system decides case by case – every application a fresh argument, every neighbour a potential veto. For three years, Croydon broke ranks, auto-approving if you followed the rules. Homebuilding doubled. A new local mayor scrapped the policy immediately. Maurice runs the numbers on how many homes could be built, if the policy were revived at a scale no local politician could stop.
Bill Chen
£1.1 billion. Under budget. No central government money. The Northern Line Extension to Battersea was funded by a trick nobody in England had tried before: tax increment financing. Borrow a billion, then pay it back with the growth the extension itself creates. Bill reveals the deal and asks what it teaches us about getting big things built in Britain.
Ruby Sleigh
Homes treated as a financial asset. Renting with no security. Buildings designed for the prototypical family. Ruby and her comrades are fed up – so they're setting up a housing co-op. Ruby shares the wins so far, the obstacles they didn't see coming and the plan from here. Spoiler: there's a very long way between a good idea and a new front door.
Archer Thomas
The tools New York used to transform Times Square: orange traffic cones, 376 beach chairs, six months. The tool London built for a similar job: an ambient benefits calculator. Archer tells the story of how Paris, Barcelona and New York reimagined their streets for this century, and what London can learn from their mistakes as much as their successes.
Levent Kerimol
Housing co-ops should be unbeatable: lower rents, better buildings and residents in control. So why does Britain barely have any? Levent's answer: volunteer management, tiny scale, rents too low to build capital. His fix? Collective Ownership: a co-op of co-ops that pools the professionals, the scale and the money, but leaves residents running their homes. If it works, every renter in Britain will want in.
Anna Clarke
Everyone knows the story: planning permission for homes turns cheap farmland into gold, and someone walks away rich. Anna spent years watching the people who take that gamble: land promoters. Parasites, say their critics. She tells a different story: the gold is thinning, and if the arithmetic drives promoters out, the homes they'd have unlocked won't announce their absence.
Reuben Pritchard
Heathrow is the best-connected land in Britain: three rail lines, two motorways, fifteen miles from Hyde Park Corner. We park aeroplanes on it. A third runway means flattening villages and noise for half a million neighbours. Reuben's fix: expand Stansted; close Heathrow entirely; make it London's 33rd borough, 200,000 strong. Quiet for today's West Londoners, homes for tomorrow's, growth for Britain?
Zach Martin
Social housing was supposed to loosen the grip of background on destiny. But local eligibility rules mean a tenant who moves loses their place in the queue, and a tenancy is worth far more in productive London than anywhere else in Britain. Zach quantifies the state-made chokehold, then asks what would have to change for social housing to actually improve social mobility.
Kate Swade
A community food project searching for forgotten common land to cultivate. A housing campaigner counting how much social housing their borough really owns. Both need the same map and until recently, neither could afford it. Kate introduces Land Explorer, the free solidarity-funded tool that finally opens Britain's land data to everyone, and tells the stories of the people already using it to change things.
The spark starters
Co-founded by Francis Irving, co-creator of TheyWorkForYou, and Henry Morris, founder of the social mobility charity upReach, Land Talks is a series of evenings to inspire and connect high-agency people to reimagine land for everyone's benefit.
Join the groundbreakers
Whether you're an analyst, policy wonk, programmer, policymaker, activist, or simply passionate about a brighter, more abundant future, join us at Land Talks to make Britain's land system work harder for everyone's benefit.
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