[P2P-F] Fwd: Manorial Rights in the UK

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brian Davey <briadavey at googlemail.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 2:21 AM
Subject: Manorial Rights in the UK
To: "CommonsDeutschland ." <Silke.Helfrich at gmx.de>, David Bollier <
david at bollier.org>, Heike Loeschmann <Loeschmann at boell.de>, Justin Kenrick <
justinkenrick at yahoo.co.uk>, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>


One of the oddest issues to surface as a result of unconventional gas
development is that of "manorial rights". As Paul Mobbs explains:

"Unlike the USA, where the energy industry buys minerals rights directly
from individual landowners, in UK the rights to the nation's fossil fuels
are owned by the Government. The rights to energy minerals in Britain were
nationalised in the 1930s - except for land held by manorial lords who
inherit their titles. This means that the Government - usually the
Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)- issues licenses to exploit
oil, coal and gas. But in isolated cases that might not be so if rights are
held by a manorial landowner."

As explained in more detail in an article in the Daily Telegraph on 5th
November 2011 -

"Under historic laws, that go back to the Norman conquest, 'Lordships of
the Manor' have the right to exploit minerals under common land around
towns and villages or land that has been brought by someone else but is
still on the ancient estate. However unless the mineral rights are
registered with the Land Registry before October 2013 they could be lost.
Accountants and estate agents are advising landowners to register their
land as soon as possible in order to cash in on minerals like gravel,
limestone and the new "energy gold", shale gas. This will ensure that
landowners are able to profit from shale gas reserves, as long as they gain
planning permission, even if the local community is against drilling. The
Doomsday Book lists 13,418 Lordships of the Manor who may hold rights over
the sub-soil. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8869801/Lords-of-the-Manor-to-cash-in-on-fracking.html

In setting out to research this on behalf of us peasants and commoners I
notice that there is now a campaign to "End Manorial Rights". The campaign
strap line is "An Action Group against out of date feudalistic laws
affecting modern society". As the campaign argues "Protected interests of
the landed gentry have NO place in today's socially and culturally diverse
Britain. We must get rid of these outdated rights." In this we should
follow the example of the Scottish parliament which abolished such rights
in 2000.

There is a petition.
http://manorialrights.org/blog/2014/02/04/sign-petition-end-manorial-rights-now/


As I have said before - an appropriate resolution to this crisis, given the
fact that are betters have surrendered to the oil and gas industry, would
be for communities to take responsibility for the protection of soil, water
and atmosphere - with a deliberative and democratic process deciding how
sensitive and precious ecological "resources" are used to ensure that the
interests of all, including other species in a healthy eco-system, are
maintained.  http://wealthofthecommons.org/









-- 
*Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no
record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..*

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