Compulsory purchase order
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A compulsory purchase order (CPO) is a legal function in the United Kingdom and Ireland that allows certain bodies to obtain land or property without the consent of the owner. It may be enforced if a proposed development is considered one for public betterment; for example, when building motorways where a landowner does not want to sell. Similarly, if town councils wish to develop a town centre, they may issue compulsory purchase orders. CPOs can also be used to acquire historic buildings in order to preserve them from neglect.
Promoting private profit
David Powell, a campaigner against Freeports, special economic zones (SEZs) and tax havens, has described how CPOs can be used to promote private profit at public expense:
In October 2025, Andy Burnham formally designated an area of Manchester as a Mayoral Development Area and established the Old Trafford Regeneration Mayoral Development Corporation, the OTRMDC. In the language of the designation order, this was “expedient for furthering economic development and regeneration” in “one of Europe’s most significant investment and development opportunities.”
The MDC is a powerful instrument. It concentrates planning powers, land assembly functions, and development control into a single body overseen by the mayor. It strips out the friction that might otherwise slow private capital, competing local authority interests, community consultation timelines, conventional planning processes. In establishing the OTRMDC, Burnham did not merely endorse the Old Trafford regeneration. He built the machine that would deliver it, and in doing so, significantly enhanced the value of the land Blackstone/Indurent held inside the zone.
The MDC also holds compulsory purchase order powers. Those powers are now relevant beyond the Blackstone transaction. A second major asset manager, Brookfield, owns Freightliner, a rail freight company occupying land Manchester United also needs for the full stadium project. Brookfield is asking £400 million for that site. United values it at between £40 million and £50 million. Talks have deadlocked. The BBC reported in August 2025 that the OTRMDC could theoretically issue a CPO to resolve the impasse. So the public institution Burnham built may yet be used to compulsorily acquire land from one of the world’s largest alternative asset managers to clear the path for a project that will principally benefit a privately owned football club and its billionaire minority owner.
The public provides the mechanism. Private capital fights over the prize.
Eight months after the MDC was established, Indurent sold its land to Manchester United. The price is undisclosed. But the context is not. Burnham’s MDC provided the institutional certainty, the planning framework, the regeneration vision, the state backing, that transformed a Trafford Park industrial site into the anchor parcel for the UK’s largest sporting arena and a 370-acre regeneration project projected to add £7 billion annually to the UK economy. That certainty has a price. It was paid for by the public. The value accrued to Blackstone.
Multiple sources have told the BBC that only the government can now alter the masterplan, regardless of who succeeds Burnham as mayor. That is the lock-in stated plainly. Burnham built the architecture, stepped into Westminster on the same day the first land deal closed, and left behind a structure that is beyond local democratic reach. That is not an unintended consequence of zone governance. That is its design.[1]
References
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