🗺️ Why Land Matters

Land is key to economic growth and equality of opportunity, yet in Britain we’ve done almost nothing in decades to unlock our most limited resource.

Is it any wonder:

Houses are unaffordable?
Productivity has stalled?
Social mobility has flatlined?

🧠 Where Fresh Thinking Meets Britain’s Oldest Bottleneck

Given that so many of our biggest challenges stem from how land is owned, regulated, and used, it’s time we viewed land with fresh eyes to spark an era of abundance and shared prosperity.

🤼 The Spark Starters

Co-founded by Francis Irving, co-creator of TheyWorkForYou, and Henry Morris, founder of the social mobility charity upReach, Land Talks is a series of evenings to inspire and connect high-agency people to reimagine land for everyone’s benefit.

⚡Lightning Talks, Lasting Ideas

Each evening features six sharp, informative and inspirational lightning talks, backed by data, or code. Expect:

Bold takes on how we ended up in the mess we’re in
Where we're at today, for good or ill
How we can build an abundant future

Throughout the evening, you’ll have plenty of time to connect with others passionate about a brighter tomorrow and to dig deeper into the land-related topics that catch your imagination.

👯 Join the Groundbreakers

Whether you’re an analyst, policy wonk, programmer, policymaker, activist, or simply passionate about a brighter, more abundant future, join us at Land Talks to make Britain’s land system work harder for everyone’s benefit.

↗️ Provocative Talks to Spark Change

Some examples of brilliant speakers and their provocative talks booked for the first three evenings of Land Talks include:

🪖 Hostage to History: Turning Tank Land into Townhouses by Mark Williams

The Ministry of Defence holds vast areas of prime land hostage, much seized during WW2 but never returned. Discover how releasing just a fraction of it today could unlock thousands of new homes, create iconic country parks, all without threatening national security.

🛖 A Wee Dream Deferred: Scotland’s Log Cabin Conundrum by Jim Stichbury

One man’s journey though Scotland’s tiny-living market revealed both a compelling lifestyle and frustrating obstacles. Find out why Jim walked away from log cabin life and what it tells us about missed rural regeneration and outdated land-use policies.

🗂️ PAF’d Off: The Quiet Scandal of Public Data Held Hostage by James O'Malley

Britain’s tangled address data regime quietly blocks thousands of innovations before they even start. Lean how the Postcode Address File become a tax on progress and what you can do about it.

ℹ️ Information for Speakers

Talks are 5 minutes long, with 5 minutes afterwards for questions
To help cover food costs and build a sense of community, we encourage speakers to purchase a ticket for themselves; we do the same
Slides are required, there must be exactly and only 20 individual slides
- Slides will automatically progress every 15 seconds during the talk (Ignite Talks style)
- Talks in this format work best when they tell a story and take the audience on a journey
- Slides should primarily illustrate the story and have few words
A week or so before the evening you must have a near-final version of your slides ready
- We will do an online dress rehearsal of the talks with as many of the speakers as possible
Final slides must be submitted to Francis via email in PDF format, by end of the Sunday before the talk, Francis will share his email during the dress rehearsal
In the days and weeks after the evening, speakers will be invited – in the order they spoke – to engage in the WhatsApp group by:
- Briefly re-introducing themselves
- Sharing their presentation
- Highlighting a point from their talk, asking a question, suggesting something they’d like to discuss or offering to answer questions
- Helping keep the conversation flowing by engaging with others, responding to questions and making comments