From reading an item pitching Eric Pickles as the saviour of the English bowling green! I’ve been reminded of little gem from earlier this year.

Grant Shapps: Communities to be given a right to reclaim land

Published 2 February 2011
Housing Minister Grant Shapps today announced plans to give members of the public the right to reclaim and develop hundreds of acres of unused public sector land and buildings, which are currently trapped in a bureaucratic quagmire. The new Community Right to Reclaim Land will help communities to improve their local area by using disused publicly owned land for new development.
Given all the rhetoric surrounding the NPPF, the housing shortage and now the recent piece of planning policy desperation- house boats – all I can do is repeat my previous observations on this piece of nonsense.
The reason why it is nonsense is two fold. Firstly, a large amount of the land owned by the public sector is remote areas unconnected with existing development and therefore falling outside of the definition of sustainable development. Of course that was the definition of sustainable development that made some sense, as opposed to the abstract one DCLG seems to favour now. The second reason this is nonsense, is because of it’s reference to communities rushing out to scoop up redundant land and develop it as a way of improving their area.
There may well be one or two communities wishing to grab and build, but they will almost certainly be the exception. Of course, if communities were able to acquire redundant land in order to prevent anything being built on it, now that would be a completely different story!