§ Sir R. Glynasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will issue in the form of a table the approximate acreages of land suitable for agricultural purposes, county by county, out of the 139,480 acres which were requisitioned during the war for training purposes but which are now earmarked for release by the War Office.
§ Mr. T. WilliamsThe total area referred to includes 1,513 acres of land in Scotland. The area in England and Wales is made up of 113,133 acres of land over which the military authorities acquired training rights under Defence Regulation 52 without dispossession of the occupiers, and 24,834 acres of land requisitioned under Defence Regulation 51. The distribution of these areas, county by county, is shown in the table below. The land has been broadly classified by my Department into three categories, as follows:
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- (a) Valuable agricultural land.
- (b) Land of poorer quality than (a) but formerly used for ordinary farming.
- (c) Hill land, rough grazing, and moorland.
All the land used under Defence Regulation 52, and with the exception of two areas all the land requisitioned under Defence Regulation 51, is in category (c). The two exceptions are 1,100 acres of grassland and medium quality arable land in Bedfordshire and 357 acres of medium quality downland suitable for grazing in Hampshire, both in category (b).
LAND IN ENGLAND AND WALES USED BY THE WAR DEPARTMENT FOR TRAINING WITH LIVE AMMUNITION DURING THE WAR BUT NO LONGER REQUIRED FOR THAT PURPOSE. Country. Area held in requisition under D.R. 51. Area used under D.R. 52. Acres. Acres. Bedfordshire 1,100 90 Berkshire 110 — Buckinghamshire — 155 Cornwall 435 115 Derbyshire 80 — Devonshire 865 1,395 Dorsetshire 520 2,400 Durham 791 6,852 Gloucestershire 36 — Hampshire 427 590 Herefordshire — 30 Hertfordshire — 200 Kent 26 26 Lancashire 38 4,007 Leicestershire — 37 Lincolnshire 635 421 Norfolk 10 1,138 Northamptonshire 9 190 Northumberland 184 13 Oxfordshire 107 — Suffolk 233 — Surrey 177 57 Sussex 32 202 Warwickshire — 133 Worcestershire 13 550 Yorkshire 18,723 26,390 Breconshire 250 20,481 Caernarvonshire — 23,050 Cardiganshire — 10,711 Denbighshire 33 — Monmouthshire — 400 Radnorshire — 13,500 Totals 24,834 113,133