Firmly into autumn, I am sure many of you enjoy a lovely stroll next to the Isis or a coffee facing your college’s quad. At the same time, households needing relief duty went up by 3.1% this year. Whilst we are lucky to have as much access to as many green spaces as we do, are we keeping the local community from using them? Even worse, Oxbridge collectively makes up this country’s largest landowner. Surely there are better uses for all of this land?
Green spaces are so important for local communities. If you have seen the new WWF advert, you’ll know that 20 minutes a day in nature helps improve your well-being significantly. Green spaces are an excellent way to detox and relax from a stressful day. However, as Oxford students, we have disproportionate access to this panacea compared to locals. Even so, many colleges have restrictions to sitting and using the grass at certain times due to excess land cultivation, so we do not fully benefit from all of Oxford’s land. It seems that only really Oxford’s bank account benefits.
Oxford owns 34,000 hectares of land. Other high contenders include Cambridge, with 17,000 hectares, and the church dioceses, with 42,000 hectares. All Souls owns over 300 properties in Brent and Christ Church, Cambridge owns the Millenium Dome. These properties put into play make their land ownership seem absurd. How could it be that Oxford and Cambridge University, whose properties and endowments totalling £2.1bn, are placed in cities with a critical homelessness problem and severe inaccessibility to green spaces, respectively?
To delve deeper into how this private ownership harms the local community, the 39 private collegiate gardens and 11 sports grounds are severely underutilised. While I am sure we are all grateful that there are only 24 weeks of term time, the 11 sports grounds Oxford owns lie dormant for the rest of the year. For security and privacy reasons, this is understandable when students are around, but these grounds could be opened up for local community activities during the off periods. For example, access to Boathouse Island from Aston’s Eye was made temporarily available during some construction work on the island. This greatly benefitted people in Iffley and Cowley with easy access to the town and scenic views.
Moreover, since universities privately own these spaces, they can’t facilitate children with spaces such as playgrounds. 26% of children in the southwest live over 10 minutes away from playgrounds.
Another unfortunate aspect of how Oxbridge uses its land is its aesthetic cultivation. The traditional lawn quad misses out on some much-needed biodiversity. The No Mow May movement aims to remedy this problem, from which Oxford could benefit. Over-mowed lawns tend to have nitrogen-rich fertiliser and pesticides harmful to natural wildlife like birds, butterflies and bees. Moreover, growing wildflowers is far more sustainable and eco-friendly. Wildflowers would reduce the need for lawnmowers, excess watering, fertilisers, and help carbon sequestration as grass tends to have shallow roots, which would absorb more water during floods. However, this is a problem that some colleges, like Lady Margaret Hall, are aware of as they turn to wildflower lawns. Christ Church also uses a mix of grasses to help increase biodiversity and has not used pesticides in the past 10 years.
Fundamentally, the issue derives from the problem best detailed by Thomas Paine in Agrarian Justice in 1796. He argued that “the earth, in its natural, uncultivated state,” would always be “the common property of the human race.” And so landowners owed compensation to non-landowners “for the loss of his or her natural inheritance.” The dilemma is whether the people affected by Oxford’s land have been adequately compensated. Possibly not if you live in Brent and do not want to contribute to the £159,853,000 All Souls already has in property investments.
On top of this, you have to ask yourself whether it is okay to profit from a common good. Specific colleges receive government agricultural grants – from taxpayers’ money – like the £117,000 St John’s College received from the Common Agricultural Policy for Waterside farms in 2016 to protect local beauty. This, on its own, seems terrific if it weren’t for the local council, which is also putting in plans to extract 200,000 tons of gravel from the area.
Oxford University may be abusing its privileges as landowners. But, luckily for residents of Oxford, there are plenty of alternative green spaces to use out of the university’s control. Whilst this doesn’t alleviate the immoralities of excessive land ownership it does mean that the local community is not so put out.
Besides the natural usage of its land, the ownership seems unreasonable. The right to live is one of our most basic principles. Most of us have never had to think of the mere act of existing as a privilege or difficulty, but that is the reality for many people in Oxford. How much land does Oxford own with dormant housing or empty plots that would be much better utilised as affordable housing?
I am not trying to say that all land ownership is inherently immoral. Having a cup of tea in your garden is not the issue. The UK has a culture of ownership dating back to the serfs and lords. I understand the desire to own something no one can take away or disrupt, but once you’ve racked up hectares like Oxbridge, you have a duty to give back to the people from whom you are taking the land, as Paine posits.