The proposed destruction of The Blean is unnecessary for any purpose other than enriching landlords and property speculators
by
Steve Cushion
The University of Kent has proposed building a new development of 2,000 houses, shops and offices on a 100 acre greenfield site in the heart of The Blean, an area of ancient woodlands, farmland and heritage sites, to the north of Canterbury. It is adjacent to the Blean Woods Nature Reserve, an ancient, semi-natural woodland recognised as a site of international importance for wildlife. West Blean is home to a project to show how European bison can provide a sustainable solution to woodland management in south east England. The proposed development is a threat to these important sites.
Avison Young, the estate agents employed by the management of the University of Kent, argue that there is “an unignorable economic need for the Sites to be delivered, to ensure the future success of the University”, further, Avison Young’s submission speaks of the significant economic pressures which the University of Kent is facing and the need to take account of the project’s role in sustaining the university’s economic future, thereby attempting to use the University’s finances as a justification for this development. Yet, Council officers told a public meeting that under no circumstances can the financial situation of any of the landowners be factored into the land allocation decisions, nor the planning.
While this may be deplorable, what has it got to do with Socialist History?
The Battle of Bossenden Wood
Blean Woods contain the site of the Battle of Bossenden Wood, which Barry Reay* calls “The Last Rising of the Agricultural Labourers”. The event took place on 31 May 1838, when a grossly outnumbered band of agricultural labourers were confronted by an armed detachment of the 45th Infantry Regiment, reinforced by the local gentry and a group of constables. The labourers were led by John Nicholls Tom, who was using the alias ‘Sir William Courtenay’.
The trouble had started when Courteney began agitating against rural poverty and the New Poor Law in the area, using as his text the biblical quotation from the Epistle of St James: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you“. He organised a series of protest and recruitment marches around the local villages, which attracted numbers of agricultural labourers and their allies, armed with cudgels.
This seriously worried the local magistrates who remembered the Captain Swing revolt of 1830. They sent a constable and his assistant to arrest Courtenay and, while he was resisting arrest, Courtenay killed the constable’s assistant. The magistrates sent for the army, who cornered the largely unarmed labourers in the wood and opened fire. The confrontation left about twenty men dead, dying or wounded, so perhaps the Massacre of Bossenden Wood would be a better expression. Eleven of the survivors were eventually brought to trial and sentenced to death, although the judge immediately reprieved them and nine were sentenced to one year in prison, while the other two were transported to Australia.
But surely, in the current housing shortage, new homes are more important than a few rare birds and frogs, some old trees or the site of an obscure incident in the class struggle from two centuries ago?
How to Solve the Housing Crisis
Nick Bano*, in his new book “Against Landlords: How to Solve the Housing Crisis“, argues that there is enough housing stock, the problem is the landlords and the law that is so heavily weighted in their favour. It is not the amount of housing available, but its cost, which, in turn, has a great deal to do with the landlordism that is at the heart of the present crisis.
The Supreme Court noted, in a tenant’s 2016 human rights challenge, that the present system was designed to ensure that “the letting of private property will again become an economic proposition”. This not only drives up prices for would-be homeowners, but it stands in direct opposition to a programme of municipalising and decommodifying the homes that already exist. It also inflates land values, making new state-led building projects unfeasible.
Solving the housing crisis does not need to involve an ecologically unforgivable project of mass-scale housebuilding. Nor need it involve asphalting green belts or destroying ancient woodlands. It just requires the recognition that the private landlord is the enemy of affordability and ensuring that the housing economy is not defined by maximising the rental yields produced by an unregulated market.
Not only is the proposed destruction of The Blean environmental vandalism, it is unnecessary for any purpose other than enriching the landlords and property speculators, in whose numbers, unfortunately, we must count the management of the University of Kent. Let us hope that this new Battle of Bossenden Wood has a happier ending for the people of the area.
Steve Cushion is a Senior Research Fellow, at University College London (UCL) Institute of the Americas, as well as a member of the Socialist History Society and the University and College Union (UCU).
*Barry Reay, “The Last Rising of the Agricultural Labourers: The Battle in Bossenden Wood, 1838”, History Workshop Journal, Volume 26, Issue 1, Autumn 1988.
*Nick Bano, Against Landlords: How to Solve the Housing Crisis (Verso: 2024)
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