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Civil servants strike against Land Registry privatisation

THOUSANDS of civil servants took to the picket lines yesterday to launch a 48-hour strike against the planned privatisation of the Land Registry.

Members of civil servants’ union PCS were due to maintain the walkout today.

“It would be an absolute disaster to privatise the Land Registry,” PCS Land Registry president Michael Kavanagh told the Star from the picket line in Croydon, south London.

Privatisation would not only mean mass redundancies — but also expose the public to potential mortgage fraud, rising house prices and even put thousands of small solicitors firms out of business.

“At the moment the state provides an impartial and secure guarantee to people’s registrations of their property,” adds Mr Kavanagh.

And the union believe that the department could offer a way out Britain’s housing crisis through setting up a central register of landlords able to regulate extortionate rents.

The union estimates that 90 per cent of responses to the government’s as-yet unpublished consultation are against the sale but leaked documents have shown that Business Minister Michael Fallon has already decided to turn the body into a public-private partnership.

“To avoid the charge that its consultation was a sham to help it drive through privatisation, the government must scrap it,” PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka told the press.

The 48-hour strike will continue until the end of today, with over 3,000 workers walking out in Durham, Fylde, Birkenhead, Hull, Telford, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham, Peterborough, Croydon, Weymouth, Gloucester, Plymouth and Swansea. 

At the headquarters in Croydon almost 60 per cent of the 260 workforce is unionised. 

Land Registry Croydon branch secretary and PCS national executive member Elenor Haven said from the picket line that the strike had the strongest support she had ever seen.

Some had crossed though — “we’ve seen a couple of the directors, yes,” Ms Haven confesses, “They’ve actually been quite friendly, for the most part.”

The union said there had been a “great” turnout across Britain, with 98 per cent of staff in Coventry refusing to work.

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