16/10/2026
🚜 COUNCILLORS, THE FABIAN PLAYBOOK & THE BATTLE FOR OUR FARMLAND: A DEEPER LOOK AT SOMERSET’S ASSET SALES
⚡ TOO LONG? HERE IS THE 60-SECOND SUMMARY:
* What's Happening? Somerset Council is liquidating public farmland and county assets to plug an operational budget gap, raising over £100 million from asset sales.
* The Debate: Local councillor Oliver Patrick claims these sales are an unavoidable step to fix an inherited £330m financial deficit and protect basic services.
* The Problem: Selling off permanent, food-producing farmland for short-term financial relief leaves the council with no remaining capital once spent—and strips future generations of food security.
* The Shadow Architecture: As NRCA founder Madeleine Hunt exposes in her research ("The Long March Through the Institutions"), councils defend these top-down policies using "LGA Guidance". The LGA is NOT a government department—it is a private membership club paid for with your council tax to push top-down agendas into local town halls.
* The LGR Relabelling Trick: Despite central government's September 7 "pause" on LGR, councils are quietly relabelling asset transfers as "Devolution" or "Spatial Planning" to keep liquidating assets behind closed doors.
* What We're Demanding: Full statutory audit transparency on every farm sold, exact unredacted prices, and personal liability for officers issuing unbacked financial commitments.
📋 Take Action: Scroll to the comments to copy our free, ready-to-send FOI templates and the official NRCA Standstill Notice to serve directly on chief officers!
Somerset Transparency Project — in partnership with the National Residents for Civic Accountability (NRCA)
When we recently published our investigation into Somerset Council’s ongoing land and county farm sales, it caught the direct attention of local leadership. Cllr Oliver Patrick (Liberal Democrat, Coker Division) responded directly in the comments.
While he caught a minor detail in our original draft—correcting a 30-year lease to a 40-year lease on private land at West Coker—he used that single factual correction to try to dismiss the entire multi-page audit report as "AI-generated" and refuse further public debate.
The irony? Somerset Council itself actively deploys internal Artificial Intelligence tools (like Microsoft Copilot and automated assistant software) for its own administration. It is rich for local leadership to use AI behind closed doors while attempting to weaponize the term as a buzzword to dodge citizens asking tough questions about public assets.
Dismissing public scrutiny doesn't make the underlying figures disappear. In fact, a closer look at Cllr Patrick’s own public statements—and the council's actual balance sheets—proves the exact point we are raising.
📌 1. THE COUNCILLOR’S DEFENSE: "WE HAVE NO CHOICE"
In his public updates to Coker residents, Cllr Patrick presents the council’s side of the ledger:
* The £330 Million Hole: He attributes Somerset’s current financial distress to a 6-year Conservative Council Tax freeze (2010–2016), which he claims created a compounding revenue loss of £330 million.
* The £100m Asset Sale Target: To balance current operational budgets, he explicitly boasts that council leadership has "raised £100m through asset sales".
* The Accounting Reality: Under Section 114 bankruptcy risks, central government granted emergency "capitalisation directions," permitting councils to sell capital assets (land and buildings) to pay for day-to-day revenue spending (adult social care and children's services).
To local leadership, selling public land is framed as an unavoidable, pragmatic step to prevent municipal insolvency.
🚨 2. THE WATCHDOG REALITY: LIQUIDATING CAPITAL FOR CONSUMABLES
While Cllr Patrick frames asset sales as "clearing up the mess," civic watchdogs and public interest researchers see a dangerous, short-sighted financial trap:
1. Short-Term Cash, Permanent Loss: Selling County Farms to plug operational budget gaps buys 12 to 18 months of financial relief. But once the farmland is sold, the rental revenue, soil heritage, and local food production capacity are gone forever.
2. Diminishing Returns: When the £100m in asset sales is exhausted, the structural deficit remains—only now the public has no capital left to sell.
3. Loss of Local Entry Points: Disposing of smallholdings strips away the vital "first step" on the ladder for new, young, independent British farmers.
⚖️ THE TWO STANDARDS OF GOVERNANCE: CORPORATE CONTRACTS VS. PUBLIC ASSETS
While the council claims it has "no choice" but to sell off permanent farmland to plug operational deficits, its own meeting records tell a very different story:
* £225M+ Corporate Lock-In: On 8 November 2023, the council awarded a £225,000,000+ core maintenance contract to national giant Kier Transportation Ltd, accepting rising material costs without hesitation.
* £1.46M Frozen/Unspent: On the exact same agenda, over £1.46M in capital allocations for homelessness safe sites, emergency shelter, and community infrastructure sat delayed, unspent, or missing from active capital expenditure ledgers.
When corporate framework contracts are involved, the machinery moves in days. When public land and local safety nets are involved, assets are sold off and community funds stall.
Read our full statement and breakdown on this £225m contract vs. community funding decision:
[https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122169118124968848&id=61579065462196
📖 3. WHAT MADELEINE HUNT (NRCA) EXPOSES: THE FABIAN PLAYBOOK & THE LGA SHADOW GOVERNMENT
As Madeleine Hunt (Founder of NRCA) exposes in her research ("Represent Your Constituency, Not the Fabian Society Playbook" & "Long March Through the Institutions"):
"Nobody voted for the Fabians or the LGA. So why is local government implementing their ideology? Unelected officers and structurally compromised councillors rely on top-down guidance to justify centralising power, liquidating public assets, and transferring land without democratic consent."
In her analysis, she reveals the exact mechanism keeping councils aligned:
* The LGA Illusion: When councillors claim they are bound by "best practice" or "LGA guidance," they are leaning on a private membership lobbying body funded by your taxpayer dollars—NOT a statutory government department.
* The Fabian Strategy (Land Value Capture): Reports from groups like the Fabian Society explicitly push local authorities to use "Land Value Capture" and asset transfers to strip value from land, overriding local democratic control under the guise of fiscal devolution.
* Planning by Assumption: Unevidenced housing targets and artificial "emergencies" override local plans—allocating greenfield farmland for solar arrays or mass developments without councils holding verified local residency data to prove genuine need.
* Procuring Consent Through Urgency: Financial crises are used as a moral shield to bypass public consultation, dismiss civic inquiries as "AI screeds," and hide sale prices under "commercial sensitivity."
🏛️ 4. THE LGR "PAUSE" TRICK & THE UNITARY MERGER TRAP
The creation of the single Somerset Council unitary authority abolished localized district oversight, concentrating massive land and financial portfolios under one centralized administration.
Furthermore, as Madeleine Hunt documents, central government's September 7 announcement to "pause" Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) has been met with tactical deception:
* Semantic Relabelling: Behind closed doors, councils are quietly relabelling major structural spending and asset transfers as "decision-agnostic" under the guise of "Devolution" or "Spatial Planning."
* The Sunk Cost Trap: Officers are pushing ahead during the "pause" so that when the review lifts, the liquidation of county farms is already a done deal.
When top-down restructuring removes traditional democratic checks, standard complaining gets eaten for breakfast. Serving formal statutory notices directly onto the desks of Chief Officers is the only line of defense left to protect our county's heritage and food security.
🔍 5. THE TWO VISIONS FOR SOMERSET
This debate exposes two fundamentally different visions for local governance:
The Official Council Narrative:
* Focus: Balancing short-term statutory accounting books.
* Strategy: Liquidate surplus land to raise £100m+ in capital receipts.
* Justification: Inherited budget deficits and past tax freezes.
* Approach: Top-down targets, LGA/Fabian-aligned restructuring, and corporate framework agreements.
The Civic Watchdog View:
* Focus: Preserving long-term public assets & food security.
* Strategy: Halt farmland disposals; demand full statutory audit transparency.
* Justification: Public land held in trust cannot be sold off without explicit consent.
* Approach: Evidence-based planning anchored in verified local data and direct officer liability.
📣 WHAT WE MUST DEMAND NEXT
Precision in a lease length does not negate the broader picture: Somerset Council is systematically liquidating its agricultural estate to patch operational budget gaps.
We don't need deflections, corporate buzzwords, or dismissals about AI—we need direct statutory disclosure:
1. Publish the Full List: Release the complete list of all County Farms sold since 2010, including acreage, buyer names, and actual sale prices.
2. Release the Disposal Policy: Publish the separate County Farms disposal policy that has been kept out of public view.
3. Target Statutory Liability: Require Section 151 Officer Lizzie Watkin and Monitoring Officer Alyn Jones to account for financial commitments made during the LGR pause under Section 114 liability.
📍 TAKE ACTION TODAY
📖 Read Part 1: Catch up on our initial breakdown of farm sales and local impact:
https://www.facebook.com/61579065462196/posts/122164444268968848/
📝 Submit an FOI: Copy our pre-drafted Freedom of Information templates in the comments below to force unredacted records onto the official register!
📜 Sign the Somerset Ultimatum: Demand full financial disclosure, an independent audit, and local democratic oversight:
https://c.org/LvQRsSfBJh
⚖️ Serve the NRCA Standstill Notice: Don't waste time complaining to councillors. Send the formal legal notice directly to Chief Executive Duncan Sharkey, Section 151 Officer Lizzie Watkin, and Monitoring Officer Alyn Jones to place them on formal notice:
https://www.facebook.com/61579065462196/posts/122160509102968848/
