The article below was written by Gemma Gardner and published in the Cambridge Independent on 31st August 2026
Council owned developer This Land Ltd (TLL) has posted another heavy loss - its tenth in a row - taking its total deficit to £75.8m.
Trading figures for 2025–6 from Cambridgeshire County Council reveal the company lost £11.9m on just £5.7m of turnover.
Cambridgeshire County Council’s headquarters New Shire Hall
It follows a decade of losses, with the company repeatedly failing to generate sufficient revenue from land development and house sales.
Andrew Rowson, a spokesman for Soham 100, a protest group which monitors TLL, said: “I calculate that TLL needs to conjure up around £86m in profits over the next three years, to repay CCC’s outstanding loans to its subsidiary.”
This Land says it remains on track to meet all repayments.
The company, which is wholly owned by the county council, oversees the acquisition and development of land and property for subsequent resale.
The council has loaned £119.75m to This Land, invested £5.85m as equity and last year it handed over a further £6.3m due to a worsening economic outlook for housing developments.
After auditors said there was a “high probability” This Land would “default” over the lifetime of the loan, the authority restructured the finances, converting about £60m into a grant.
The council says it agreed to a “widely-reported” restructuring of financial commitments with This Land in 2025 and it continues to deliver in line with that plan. It forecasts it will receive income and repayments from the company “slightly in excess of the funds provided”.
Mr Rowson says TLL’s long record of losses makes repayment “increasingly impossible,” despite assurances earlier this year that the company was turning itself around.
He highlights that TLL has spent roughly £270m of public money over a decade but sold only £25.5m worth of homes, and criticises the council for repeatedly blocking public access to key financial documents.
“It is reasonable to ask where the rest of that money has gone,” he said, adding: “Those questions cannot be answered when the council denies the public their statutory rights to inspect the documents behind This Land’s accounts for five years in succession.
“Taxpayers have a right to know how their money has been spent.”
Soham 100 believes TLL should be wound up quickly to prevent further avoidable losses, arguing the money is urgently needed for core services such as social care, road repairs and education.
A Cambridgeshire County Council spokesperson said: “The majority of This Land’s £11.9m loss reported before tax for the year ended 31 March 2026 was due to money repaid and accrued to the council, in line with their current business plan.