Here is a fascinating, thought-provoking talk from Brian Anson in the 1970s. Are things different now? Well,
0.022% of the EU’s population (0.7% of its farming population) own a quarter of its land. Collectively, they receive €12 billion/annum, thanks to the CAP. “Fiscal injustice of the most medieval kind” – @MarkCocker2
— Tom Holland (@holland_tom) April 3, 2018
What follows are the extensive notes from a paper on ‘LAND’ that the late architect Brian Anson gave at the Architectural Association (AA) in 1974 to a room full of its architecture students and staff. To my knowledge this has never been aired before, other than those who heard it in person. The lecture, or the story he told (As Brian once said ‘I don’t do lectures, I do stories’) had a great impact on several people in that room then, and I feel that it still has much of its potency today, nearly 40 years later. As the opening line so clearly states: ‘this talk is about land’. Anson takes a long view in order to better understand the present (1974) circumstances and to think about the future of territory and land ownership. Although it is buried in the middle of the paper, Anson admits that it is his experience…
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Séamus Sweeney 