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Channel Posts
| 2 | They've let the lakes get so bad, and the wildlife is suffering. | 30 |
| 3 | Bastards | 33 |
| 4 | https://caerphilly.observer/news/1061939/councillor-slams-terrible-state-of-caerphilly-castle-moat/ | 31 |
| 5 |  +2Follow the money...
This American Billionaire Robert Joel. Shillman shill-man 👈🏼🤔🤣!! Hes the ziøn'ìst who funded the far-right figures zion Daniel Thomas. Aka Danny Tommo. And also funding 100k to zion Tommy Robinson. aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
Copied | 28 |
| 6 |  One of the greatest examples of the juxtaposition between the architectural ugliness of hypermodernity and the rustic relics of bygone Britain is the veiw of Deansgate Station in Manchester. | 22 |
| 7 | That is my picture and mostly everything I said on Facebook. | 40 |
| 8 | Dead cygnets spark pollution fears at city lake https://share.google/ASqhP6qv8OPAu5KtB | 40 |
| 9 | California Dept. of Fish & Wildlife legal confession: we have no scientific evidence that “chronic wasting disease” spreads from “infected” to healthy animals
Not even 1 study authored by anyone, anywhere, ever!
https://christinemasseyfois.substack.com/p/california-dept-of-fish-and-wildlife | 39 |
| 10 | We are not trying to start a revolution - because revolution is exactly what they are orchestrating.
It’s a well-worn formula:
Create crisis,
Suppress freedoms,
Allow frustration to build,
Then deliver a “people’s revolution” - controlled from the top.
These revolutions are not grassroots movements.
They are scripted resets, led by fake opposition, meant to shift control while claiming to restore it.
They deliver the same agenda - not as oppressors, but as saviours.
https://hplibrary.substack.com/p/the-manufactured-crisis-state | 36 |
| 11 | • Serve a Preservation of Evidence Notice — formally requires the council to keep and not delete records
• Template & guidance: https://hplibrary.substack.com/p/now-its-your-turn-inform-your-council
• Send to: Chief Executive, Monitoring Officer, Section 151 Officer, External Auditor
• Ask: "By what legal authority?" — which Act & section authorises each decision?
🗣️ PHASE 4: Ask & Engage Publicly
• Ask questions at council meetings during public question time
• Write to your councillors & MP — calm, factual, constructive
• Share responsibly — stick to what you can prove; if unconfirmed, say so and invite others to help verify
• Connect the dots — do funding timelines match sales? Do interests match decisions? Are patterns repeating across areas?
✅ Quick Start — Your First 3 Steps:
1. Today: Find your council's Register of Interests
2. This week: Find one major decision report and read it — note what's missing
3. Next: Draft your first FOI request for the document that wasn't published
📢 WHAT YOU CAN DO
• 📜 Sign the Somerset Ultimatum — call for full disclosure, independent audit, and local control:
👉 https://c.org/LvQRsSfBJh
• 🚨 Send the Formal Legal Notice — demand they preserve all records and evidence:
📎 Full notice & instructions: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122160509102968848&id=61579065462196
• 🔍 Comment on the Bridgwater planning application — search Ref 09/23/00003:
👉 sdc.somerset.gov.uk/planning_online
Cc: duncan.sharkey@somerset.gov.uk & alyn.jones@somerset.gov.uk
• 📧 Submit information requests — use the council's online form to ensure it's logged properly under the 20-day legal deadline:
👉 somerset.gov.uk/information-requests
• 📧 Ask your councillor:
◦ Where is the full list of farmland sales dating back to 2010?
◦ Where exactly did the £9.1m — and the full £24m+ — go?
◦ When will the County Farms disposal policy be published?
◦ What is the council's plan for protecting agricultural land and food security?
◦ Why are FOI requests for spending details being refused?
🐉 JOIN THE MOVEMENT
Madeleine Hunt is the founder of the National Residents for Civic Accountability (NRCA) — a growing national network of residents demanding transparency, evidence, and accountability from local and national government. Drawing on her own experience, she shows how systems can erode local control — not with tanks, but with consultations, targets, funding conditions, and "devolution."
We're calling on every county across the UK to follow the same blueprint: audit the decisions, demand the evidence, and build toward judicial review together.
Food security starts with keeping the land in food production. If we let it go field by field, we won't get it back. And if we don't ask the tough questions now — about where the money goes, what's being sold, and what's being planned — we won't get the answers later.
Don't keep this to yourself — share it! The more people who see this, ask the questions, and submit their own requests, the harder it is to ignore.
Everything here is drawn from verified council documents, FOI summaries, and official statements. If you have additional reports or evidence, share them — the more complete the picture, the stronger our case.
📋 COPY & PASTE THE FULL FOI TEMPLATES in the comments below — Request A and Request B, ready to send! ✂️
📖 This is only Part 1. Read Part 2 — the bigger picture, the patterns, and the wider system — here:
👉 https://m.facebook.com/story.php | 24 |
| 12 | The UK government's 25 Year Environment Plan (Defra, Jan 2018) sets clear national goals: sustainable food production, healthy soils, food security, protecting land. Yet on the ground:
• National policy says "protect food production" — but local funding pressures force councils to sell farmland just to keep basic services running
• No national protection or funding bridge provided to bridge the gap
• Result: Land lost → more food imported → greater supply chain, carbon, and food security risks
• County farms loss is national: ~40% of England's county farm land gone since 2000; fewer new entrants; higher land prices; consolidation
⚠️ QUESTIONS WE HAVE A RIGHT TO ASK
• Where is the full list? Which farms sold since 2010? Names, dates, acreages, prices, buyers?
• Where did the money go? Not "general funds" — which budget lines? Which services? Which debts? How much revenue vs capital?
• When will the separate County Farms disposal policy be published? It's referenced but never released — why?
• What happened to the new-entrant recommendations? The 2017 Task & Finish Group proposal for 5–20 acre plots — was it ever tried? Or is "limited use for new entrants" now just the excuse to sell?
• Which farms are next? Is the 2010 List A still active? Is the rest of Donyatt (1,206 acres) safe?
• Why no social value test? Why are food security, new farmer opportunities, and community benefit not part of the "surplus" assessment?
• How do we resolve the contradiction? National policy says protect land — local funding forces sale. Who fixes this?
• Why are FOI requests for consolidated spending details being refused?
• Are there any conflicts of interest? Are councillors or officers involved in decisions affecting organisations they also serve or benefit from?
"We have asked. We have searched. We have looked through the reports. But the full picture is being kept from us — the complete list, the true prices, the exact spending. The secrecy itself is part of the issue. When public land changes hands, the public deserves to know the full story."
📍 SOMERSET RESIDENTS — WE NEED YOUR HELP TO GET THE FULL PICTURE
We've put together two targeted Freedom of Information requests asking Somerset Council for the facts about our county farms: what's been sold, for how much, who bought them, where the money went, and how decisions are made.
📝 The full drafted questions are ready and waiting in the COMMENTS below — just scroll down, copy, personalise, and submit through the council's information portal. It only takes a few minutes.
When you send it — let me know! Take a quick screenshot of the confirmation or reference number and send it my way. We're building a record of how many people are asking these questions — and tracking when responses are due.
The more of us who ask, the harder it is to ignore. 💪
📋 THE NATIONAL BLUEPRINT — FOR EVERY COUNTY
This isn't just Somerset. This is the blueprint for every county in the UK. Whatever council you're under, you can follow these same steps to find the facts, ask the questions, and demand the answers in your own area — as laid out by Madeleine Hunt:
📋 PHASE 1: Start Where You Are — Public Information First
1. Find & Read Your Council's Register of Interests — search "[Council Name] Register of Interests" — check councillors' links to property, development, planning, energy
2. Pull the Public Decision Documents — Agendas & Minutes → search devolution, asset sales, major planning → read the officer's report, not just the summary
3. Check the Council's Published Finances — budget reports, capital programme, asset disposal lists, Section 151 reports, audit findings
📝 PHASE 2: Request What Isn't Published — FOI Requests
• Ask for: unredacted viability appraisals, funding agreements, internal correspondence, developer selection criteria, unpublished reports
• Submit via council's online FOI form — be specific, ask for documents not opinions
• 20 working days from receipt to reply — statutory right
⚖️ PHASE 3: Formal Legal Notices | 20 |
| 13 | Example 3: Lawrence Farm, Wincanton — BA9 9EJ
• 75.09 acres — farmhouse, buildings, and pastureland
• AHA 1986 tenancy negotiated to end — vacant possession secured March 2026
• Class Q planning halted — flood risk issues; selling as agricultural instead
• Being sold in up to 4 separate lots by online auction
• Uplift/overage clauses included
• Price confidential — Appendix A marked exempt from disclosure
Example 4: West End Farm / Land at Marston Magna — Key Decision Aug 2023
• Barns converted to 5 dwellings — planning secured before sale to maximise value
• Sold in three separate lots by auction
• 47.75 acres retained — council keeps part, sells the high-value development portion
• Appendix 2 marked confidential — sale price redacted
• Proceeds explicitly to Medium-Term Financial Plan — supporting capital/revenue budgets
Example 5: Aug 2024 Disposal Batch — 22 Sites, £17m–£21m
• Manor Farm, Lopen: ~50 acres; planning for 2 dwellings + listed building conversions; sold at auction
• Downs Farm, Donyatt: Part of the 1,206-acre Donyatt holding — farmstead + land sold to tenant; confirms the county's largest holding is being broken up
• Land at Splatt, Spaxton: 87 acres sold — "limited use for new entrant farmers" cited
• Land at Thorne Marsh, Castle Cary: ~92 acres; ~5 acres retained for phosphate mitigation; rest sold
• Land at Forton, Chard: ~92 acres sold — "limitations for new entrants" cited
• Leaze Farm, Lympsham: House + buildings back to council at end of tenancy; planning app submitted
⚠️ Pattern emerging: The same phrase — "limited use for new entrant farmers" — used repeatedly to justify selling land, yet the 2017 Task & Finish Group specifically recommended creating 5–20 acre plots for new entrants, not selling it all off.
Example 6: Land East of Bower Lane, Bridgwater — App Ref: 09/23/00003
• 750 homes proposed on ~32 hectares of greenfield agricultural land
• Forms part of the East Bridgwater (B3) allocation — total ~1,540 homes
• Affordable housing: Only 5% offered (38 homes) — Local Plan requires 30%. Viability claims even 0% unviable — yet projected developer profit £40.8 million
• NHS & schools funding: £0 secured despite assessed need
• 267 public representations submitted; Bridgwater Town Council & Parish Council both formally objected
Example 7: West Coker Solar Farm
• 16.24 hectares of Grade 2 ("best and most versatile") agricultural land — privately owned land, not county farm land
• Leased for 30 years to Leonardo Helicopters — land removed from food production for a generation, but not permanently lost
• West Coker Parish Council objected — prime food-producing land should be protected
• Approved — no requirement to assess food production impact as part of consent
• This illustrates wider pressure on farmland, though it is not a council county farm disposal.
Other land use pressures:
• Data centre proposals near Bridgwater — large-scale energy and water demand on the Somerset Levels, potentially classified as national infrastructure
🌿 NET ZERO & THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY — THE SMOKESCREEN
Since 2019, what began as performative "Climate Emergency" declarations has grown into a full-scale financial and constitutional reset. As Madeleine Hunt writes:
"They used 'Climate' and 'Housing' as the violin tune everyone was meant to fear, while the real purpose was the liquidation of our counties."
• No baseline, no data: Councils have poured millions into "Green Transformation" — yet the foundations were never there.
• The 1% reality: The UK contributes less than 1% of global emissions, yet residents are expected to fund a "managed decline" of local infrastructure and food production for a narrative councils cannot even quantify.
• Selling the solution to fund the problem: Instead of protecting our most fertile soil as a carbon sink and food resource, we are selling it off — and using the very climate crisis as the excuse to do so. We cannot claim to fight climate change while destroying the land that feeds us and sequesters carbon in the process.
🌿 NATIONAL POLICY — A CONTRADICTION | 20 |
| 14 | • Capitalisation direction — confirmed third year running: up to £36.9m from asset sales explicitly built into the financial strategy to fund revenue costs, not just long-term investment
• The new Unitary Council inherited structural deficits from 5 predecessor councils — reserves low, borrowing high (£937m CFR)
• Capital receipts from land sales are explicitly built into the financial plan — asset sales are relied upon to plug revenue gaps, not just fund long-term investment
• Rental income lost: Disposals will result in loss of future rental income — acknowledged but not quantified
• No prices published: Somerset Council has not released how much it expects to generate from Pond Farm or any individual sale, citing "commercial sensitivity" — as seen in confidential appendices to Key Decision reports
• Debt rising: £823m (2023/24) → £1,047m — costing ~£44m/year in interest
• £20m being spent on consultants/transformation partners alongside service pressures
• External auditors Grant Thornton issued 3 statutory recommendations on financial sustainability
• Nationally: 1 in 5 councils say they face a real risk of insolvency within 18 months. Council tax arrears have hit £7.4bn. The Public Accounts Committee warns there is still no long-term government plan to fix the funding crisis — forcing councils everywhere to sell assets just to keep basic services running.
📜 THE POLICY — HOW IT WORKS
• Core principle: "Do not hold surplus property — dispose to generate capital receipts"
• Decision thresholds:
◦ Over £500k = Key Decision (published, but financial details may be redacted)
◦ £50k–£500k = Non-Key Decision paper
◦ Under £50k = fully delegated to officers
• Legal power: Section 123 Local Government Act 1972 — duty to get "best consideration" (market value)
◦ Exception: Can sell at undervalue up to £2m for "economic, social, or environmental wellbeing" — no ministerial consent needed
• No mandatory public consultation for individual disposals — discretionary only
• No published triage system for balancing social value vs. commercial value — Scrutiny raised this as a concern in Sept 2023
• "Surplus" defined internally — no public criteria; Asset Management Group decides
• No social value assessment routinely documented — equalities, climate, community, health marked "no implications"
• Transparency rules: "Commercial sensitivity" routinely used to withhold sale prices, buyer identities, and spending details — FOI requests refused
• Disposal ≠ Transfer: When councils say "transfer," check the legal notice — it often says "disposal." A genuine transfer protects public rights; a disposal removes them. Promises are not protections. If the asset is genuinely safe, publish the legal terms, the covenants, and the buyer's identity.
• Watch for conflicts of interest: Be alert to "community trusts" or "development partners" where councillors or council officers sit on both sides of the transaction — as trustees, directors, or decision-makers. The same people should not be able to vote on selling public land to organisations they themselves run.
🏠 ON THE GROUND — WHAT IT ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE
Example 1: Pond Farm, Donyatt — Ilminster TA19 0RG
• 82.79 acres total — bungalow, buildings, and pastureland west of the A358
• Being split up and sold in parcels:
◦ 5 acres + buildings → already agreed to late tenant's son for his agricultural business
◦ Bungalow + 46.47 acres → sold in 3 lots on open market with uplift clause — council gets extra if land is later developed
◦ 31.32 acres → retained — either re-let to local farmer or used for biodiversity net gain
• Price confidential — "commercial sensitivity"
Example 2: East Farm, Lympsham — Key Decision
• 79.5 acres — AHA tenancy surrendered to secure vacant possession before sale
• 40 acres retained for biodiversity net gain or re-letting
• Price again confidential
• Same pattern: end tenancy → sell vacant → price hidden | 19 |
| 15 | 2018 — First Major Sell-Off
• 7 farms sold — raising £8m
• Estate reduced from 62 farms down to 20 remaining
• £24m total raised since 2017 across all asset disposals
• 2018/19 capital receipts: £10,677,725 from property disposals — explicitly including "a number of farms"
2018–2019 — Sales Accelerate
• 2019/20 target: £3m+; £1.61m received + £2.67m contracts exchanged by Aug 2019
• Disposals explicitly reduce revenue costs (maintenance, utilities, etc.)
• Private sales often have agricultural covenants — but development potential overrides this
• Overage/uplift clauses confirmed as standard practice — council retains right to extra payment if land value rises post-sale
Nov 2023 — Unitary Council, Accelerated Programme
• Unified Corporate Assets Disposals Policy adopted — replaces 5 former district council policies
• County farms disposals are referenced as being handled under a separate policy — distinct from the general asset disposal rules — but that separate guidance has never been published. The public has a right to see what rules apply to the sale of our land.
• Asset Management Group tasked to review entire portfolio and bring forward disposals
• Capitalisation direction approved — central government permission to use capital receipts for revenue spending — third year running
• £36.9m in asset sale receipts approved for 2024/25 budget under this directive
"The capitalisation direction approved by the former Government encouraged us to sell surplus property and assets, and use the capital receipts to fund essential services, like adults and children's social care."
— Cllr Ros Wyke, Lead Member for Economic Development, Planning and Assets, October 2024
• These sales are accelerating during the most vulnerable phase of reorganisation — when accountability is blurred, and tthe he new council doesn't yet exist to answer for the old cou,ncil's decisions.
Aug 2024 — The £17m–£21m Batch
• 22 non-operational assets approved for disposal — estimated value £17m–£21m
• £80m funding gap for 2024/25; £100m gap for 2025/26 — Section 114 risk explicitly cited
• Projected pipeline: ~£30m in capital receipts for 2024/25
• Farmland sites included alongside commercial and development assets
2025–2026 — Current Phase
• Tenancies being surrendered: Council negotiating to end Agricultural Holdings Act tenancies to free up vacant possession for sale
• Planning not required: If residential planning is blocked (e.g. flood risk), land sold as agricultural — but uplift clauses capture future development value
• Price details kept confidential: "Commercially sensitive" — public cannot see what public assets sell for
• Farms actively marketed: Lawrence Farm and Pond Farm both listed publicly on Somerset Council website — last updated 26 August 2026
💰 THE FINANCIAL CRISIS — THE ROOT CAUSE
"As a result of our financial position, and reliance on a capitalisation directive, the council is committed to a rationalisation of its property and land portfolio, reducing holding and management costs and achieving capital receipts."
— David Ashton, Somerset Council Property Officer
• £23.4 million overspent in 2022/23 alone — Adults Services £15.4m over, Children's Services £21.2m over
• £84.9m additional funding requirement projected for 2023/24 — driven by inflation, demographics, and demand
• £40.8m in savings needed just to balance the budget
• A £100 million+ funding gap forecast over three years
• General Fund reserves collapsed — from £27.1m down to just £3.7m by March 2023 — critically low
• The 2023/24 budget was only balanced by using £10 million of reserves plus £9.9 million in one-off funding — explicitly described as "not a sustainable position"
• S151 Officer warned: Section 114 notice (effectively "bankruptcy") roughly 18 months away as of September 2023 if structural issues not addressed | 22 |
| 16 | ?JustifyFIELD BY FIELD: HOW SOMERSET COUNCIL IS SELLING OUR FARMLAND
Updated: 6 September 220-acreacts verified against council documents as of this date
Too long? Don't worry — the short summary is waiting for you in the comments! 👇 And Somersefarmlandts — we've also got ready-to-send FOI templates right there in the comments so you can submit these questions yourself. Whatever county you're in, this is the blueprint — read, adapt, and do the same in your own area.
Somerset Transparency Project — in partnership with the National Residents for Civic Accountability (NRCA)
"They did not need to ban traditional farming. They simply made the farm economically unviable, paid producers to do anything other than produce, and are now calling the missing food a 'climate emergency'."
— Madeleine Hunt, founder, National Residents for Civic Accountability
📖 Full blueprint & guidance: https://substack.com/@madeleine881227
📋 Formal Legal Notice & Somerset Ultimatum: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122160509102968848&id=61579065462196
📌 THE BIG PICTURE — NOT NEW, NOT ACCIDENTAL
22 sites in one report. £17m–£21m projected. 299 acres lost in 3 years. That is what has been confirmed — and it is only the latest phase of a deliberate policy running since 2010.
From April 2023 to April 2026, Somerset Council has reduced the county farms estate from 53 holdings (2,995 acres) to 33 holdings (2,696 acres) — losing 20 farms and 299 acres of publicly owned agricultural land held in trust for the public. The money — £9.1 million+ and counting — is being used to fund day-to-day council spending, not reinvested in farming or food security.
Figures compiled from FOI summaries and council records — full audited consolidated list still not published by the council.
This is not a sudden crisis. It is the continuation of a strategy documented in the council's own reports since 2010: split farms into "sell now" and "sell later" lists, use capital receipts to balance revenue budgets, and keep the details confidential under "commercial sensitivity." FOI requests for breakdowns of spending have been refused.
And it's part of a national trend — county farms across England have already lost ~40% of their land since 2000.
Wider asset disposal programme:
• A 22-site batch of non-operational assets projected to raise £17m–£21m over 12–18 months
• Tied to an £80m immediafarmficit + £100m projected budget gap
📜 THE Tfarmland DECADES IN THE MAKING
2010 — The Policy Begins
• County farms split into List A (sell as soon as possible) and List B (retain unless development opportunity or vacancy)
• 62 farms in the estate at this point
• No land purchased since — only sold or swapped
• Capital receipts from sales fund revenue budgets — not just capital projects
2017 — The Task & Finish Group Reports
Documented in the County Farms Task & Finish Group Report, December 2017, presented to Scrutiny Committee 31 October 2017
• No statutory duty for councils to run county farms — entirely discretionary
• Rental return on estate: less than 1% — cited as financial justification
• £6.5m required from asset sales in 2017/18; £4m for 2018/19 — explicitly to support revenue budgets
• Very few new entrants getting tenancies — most go to existing tenants
• Only ~4 farms re-let since 2010; just 2 to new tenants
• Key Recommendation: Retain 5–20 acre bare-land plots specifically for new entrants — never meaningfully implemented
• 2019 new entrants scheme proposed — dismissed as unworkable, too small to generate income
• Sales to tenants at discounted price have 5-year clawback if resold
• NFU warned: Selling the "golden goose" — losing long-term rental income for short-term cash; warned against blanket disposal without weighing wider community benefits
• TFA stated clearly: "Halt disposals; put in place a proper asset management plan" delivering both financial and community value — this advice was not followed | 22 |
| 17 |  No text... | 26 |
| 18 |  No text... | 116 |
| 19 | He was given a nine-month sentence but it was reduced to 19 weeks for the time he previously spent in prison. | 31 |
| 20 | On holiday with his children, not a good man at all. | 32 |
