Founder Shiv Malik’s own words exposed the charter city agenda of Suffolk’s Forest City — and yet he’s now calling me “shady” for publishing them. So, here they are – along with an explanation of why this project is such bad news for all of us.
Introduction: the British public is not being told the truth about what is happening to their land
Across the UK, vast swathes of our countryside, farmland, national parks, green spaces, digital infrastructure, and even local democratic powers are being reorganised into a nationwide archipelago of ‘deregulated zones’: Freeports, Special Economic Zones, Investment Zones, Industrial Strategy Zones, AI Growth Zones, Defence Growth Zones, University Enterprise Zones, Food Zones and more.
Most of this has happened with minimal public oversight, minimal parliamentary debate, and near-total media silence.
Freeports → SEZs → Investment Zones → AI Zones → Charter Cities.
This is the progression. The template. The plan.
And into this landscape drops Forest City, a proposed new million-person privately- master-planned settlement on 45,000 acres of Suffolk farmland, backed by a consortium of tech entrepreneurs, political operatives, and libertarian think tanks.
When the project was announced in October 2025, I analysed the network of supporters, flagging the involvement of:
- Patrik Schumacher (anarcho-capitalist, NEOM architect, Zaha Hadid Architects principal; signatory, not yet confirmed architect)
- The Adam Smith Institute
- The Centre for Policy Studies (and its online arm CapX)
- Spiked magazine (Koch network)
- Labour and Tory policy influencers
- Revolut’s investigations manager
- New Labour grandees
Forest City co-founder Shiv Malik contacted me directly, offering to “answer my questions”. I did what any responsible citizen should: I asked him for clarity about land ownership, democratic control, SEZ plans, governance, displacement, investor benefits, and transparency.
He answered.
And what he admitted, in his own words, is more damning than any critic of charter cities could invent.
When I documented his responses publicly, contextualising them within the global charter city movement, the UK’s post-Brexit free-zone architecture, and the extreme libertarian ideology of his own supporters, Malik responded by calling me:
- “shady”
- “untrustworthy”
- “not impartial or fair”
- “breaking our deal”
There was no deal. There were questions, and answers, and then analysis: the very foundation of public accountability.
This article sets out what he told me, what it means, and why Forest City represents a profound threat to democratic governance in Britain.
Part 1 – The network: who is backing Forest City?
Before getting to Malik’s own admissions, we must understand the network surrounding Forest City.
This is not “cherry-picking”. It is pattern recognition’.
Q1) Why does it matter that Patrik Schumacher signed the Forest City petition?
A) Because while he is not confirmed as the architect, his ideology shapes the entire governance model Forest City is proposing.
Schumacher is the world’s most prominent anarcho-capitalist architect, openly advocating:
the full privatization of cities, including their infrastructures, public spaces, streets, and urban management systems.
He has worked on:
1. NEOM (Saudi Arabia)
Where residents forcibly removed for construction have been sentenced to death.
2. Próspera (Honduras)
A charter city backed by Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen and Balaji Srinivasan via Pronomos Capital.
Honduras has since repealed the ZEDE framework, calling it a creation of a “narco-regime”.
Even Paul Romer, the Nobel laureate who invented charter cities, now rejects Próspera as a libertarian fantasy immune to democratic accountability.
3. Forest City (UK)
Schumacher is a signatory to the Forest City public letter — a clear ideological endorsement.
This is the triptych:
NEOM → Próspera → Forest City.
Q2) Why are right-wing think tank figures supporting a supposedly progressive “community land trust” project?
A) Because Forest City’s governance and economic proposals are identical to the charter city blueprint advocated by Tufton Street think tanks for over a decade.
Adam Smith Institute: The ASI has long advocated for SEZ-based privately governed cities.
Centre for Policy Studies / CapX: CapX published the infamous 2020 proposal: “Let’s Build Hong Kong 2.0 in the UK“.
It called for:
- New cities
- Independent governance
- Exemption from planning law
- Low tax regimes
- Private masterplanning
- Investor sovereignty
Forest City’s brochure matches this almost line-for-line.
Q3) Why is Spiked (Koch network) also involved in the Forest City?
A) Because Spiked receives (or has received) Koch-linked funding and supports hyper-libertarian deregulation.
Their deputy editor is a signatory. This is not a coincidence.
Q4) Why are New Labour figures endorsing this?
A) Because Labour is now fully aligned with the SEZ / Freeport / Investment Zone model.
Former Labour minister Patricia Hewitt backs Forest City, representing the technocratic wing of the party that embraces:
- PFI
- Public-private partnerships
- Marketisation of public assets
- Zone-based economic governance
This is bipartisan collusion.
Part 2 – Britain’s new geography of power: freeports, SEZs, ISZs, AI growth zones
Forest City cannot be understood without understanding the UK’s transformation into a nation of layered deregulated zones.
Q5) Does Dartmoor National Park really sit inside a deregulated SEZ?
A) Yes. The Plymouth & South Devon Freeport sits inside a 75km Investment / SEZ radius that fully includes Dartmoor.
Q6) Did Labour merge Freeports and SEZs?
A) Yes. In June 2025 the Labour government published the Industrial Strategy Zones Action Plan, explicitly merging:
- Freeports
- Special Economic Zones
- Investment Zones
- Innovation Zones
- Enterprise Zones
- AI Growth Zones
This means the deregulatory framework of Freeports is now embedded inside SEZ / ISZ structures.
Q7) Is Labour continuing the Tory free-zone agenda?
A) Yes. Entirely.
Labour is:
- Maintaining the 12 Freeports
- Maintaining the 74 SEZs / Investment Zones
- Expanding AI Growth Zones
- Introducing secondary legislation that bypasses local planning
This preserves the post-Brexit bypass of EU state aid rules, enabling government to funnel public funds to private developers.
Q8) What are AI Growth Zones?
A) The digital layer of deregulated governance.
Launched in January 2025, they provide:
- Data deregulation
- Procurement exemptions
- R&D tax shelters
- “Innovation sandboxes”, where normal legal protections are suspended
There have already been 200+ bids.
Q9) What does BlackRock’s “nature assets” mean?
A) It means reclassifying National Parks, Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and habitats as market-priced financial instruments.
BlackRock, Blackstone and UBS are building “nature services” portfolios aligned with DEFRA’s “nature markets” and the Treasury’s Natural Capital regime.
This is the privatisation of the commons.
Part 3 – Forest City: The questions, the answers, the revelations
Now the core. What did Shiv Malik actually say?
These are his words, verbatim, exactly as he wrote them in private correspondence in October 2025:
Q10) Will residents democratically control the Community Land Trust?
A) Malik directly admitted they will not:
When it comes to this trust, no, it’ll not be left to a board of residents… Trustees are always appointed. Democratic choice often runs counter to long-term interests.
This is extraordinary.
It’s the opposite of a community land trust.
This is appointed governance, not democratic governance.
Q11) Who builds the city?
A) An unelected government Development Corporation:
The development corporation set up by the government is what does the building and dispenses the land…
This mirrors the New Towns model — but layered with SEZ exemptions.
Q12) Will Forest City seek Special Economic Zone powers?
A) Malik confirmed yes:
Yes. We would seek Canary Wharf style reductions in headline taxes and exemptions from building taxes etc.
This alone destroys the claim that Forest City is not a charter city.
Q13) What profit do founders receive?
A) 80 acres of land, gifted to the consortium.
[Albion City Development Corporation] ACDC… gets a gift of 80 acres. That’s the reward for risking 200m of private money.
80 acres within a million-person SEZ masterplan = tens of millions in uplift value.
Q14) Do existing villages get a veto?
A) No. The Secretary of State decides their fate.
When asked what happens if a village votes 90% against inclusion, Malik said:
That’s for the current residents and the Secretary of State to decide!
Not residents alone.
Q15) When will the legal documents be published?
A) In 2 to 3 years:
Two to three years from now.
They want government backing first. Transparency later.
Q16) Why are anarcho-capitalists backing the project?
A) Malik called it a mix of libertarianism and cooperativism:
It’s just a very strange mixture of libertarianism and cooperativism.
Libertarian governance.
Cooperative branding.
This contradiction defines Forest City.
Q17) What did Malik do when I published his answers?
A) He accused me of being “shady”, “breaking a deal”, and “not impartial”.
There was no deal.
There were questions, and answers, and then analysis.
This is a standard intimidation tactic: discredit the critic, avoid the substance.
Previous charter cities
Q18) What happened when charter cities were tried before?
A) They failed spectacularly and were declared unconstitutional.
Madagascar (2010)
Paul Romer convinced Madagascar’s president to set aside half the country’s arable land for charter cities. The plan collapsed when it contributed to a coup that overthrew the government.
Honduras (2011-2012)
The Honduran government passed legislation to create charter cities called ZEDEs. What happened:
Sites described as “unpopulated” were actually home to large numbers of the Garifuna Indigenous community who would be displaced.
The Honduran Supreme Court declared charter cities unconstitutional because Honduran laws wouldn’t apply there.
The government responded by firing the four Supreme Court judges who voted against it.
Romer resigned from his transparency committee when the government signed contracts with foreign investors without his knowledge.
Próspera (2020-2023)
Despite these failures, libertarian tech investors backed by Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen pushed ahead with Próspera on the Honduran island of Roatán, with initial buildings designed by Zaha Hadid Architects.
When Honduras moved to shut down Próspera and other ZEDEs in 2022, calling them a “narco-regime” creation, the charter city sued Honduras for $11 billion, demanding compensation for future profits lost due to the government asserting sovereignty over its own territory.
Even Paul Romer gave up. The Nobel laureate who invented charter cities now rejects projects like Próspera, saying they represent “living in this libertarian fantasy that… they… can be free of the government“.
A Jacobin analysis concluded:
While his ideas seemed convincing in the air-conditioned hum of a TED Talks lecture theater, in practice the trading of democracy for untrammeled free-market capitalism turned out not to be conducive to human rights, political stability, and the flourishing of a million bright-eyed tech entrepreneurs.
Critics have characterised Romer’s thinking as “informed by a colonialist view of development” that “presumes certain places in the world are too backward to be allowed the luxury of normal aspects
of democratic governance”.
Q19) How does Forest City fit into Suffolk’s existing SEZ infrastructure?
A) It’s strategically positioned within Suffolk’s Investment Zone corridor. Suffolk has established Investment Zone sites along the A14, A12, and A11 transport corridors.
Forest City, positioned near the A14 between Haverhill and Newmarket, would occupy approximately 182 square kilometers (45,000 acres). That’s roughly 4.8% of Suffolk’s total land area, right in the heart of this existing SEZ infrastructure.
UK Investment Zones are designed with a tax incentive boundary limit of 600 hectares (6 square kilometres), but surrounding this area is a wider investment zone “core” and an even broader “ecosystem” collectively known as a “cluster”. As the government’s own policy prospectus states, “we do not expect this activity to be limited to a fixed red-line boundary”.
Forest City’s 182 square kilometres is 30 times larger than the nominal 6 square kilometre Investment Zone limit. [Information from UK Government Investment Zones policy prospectus and Suffolk County Council Investment Zone proposals, 2023-2024.]
This reveals the strategic layering at work:
-
Investment Zones established along transport corridors (already operational)
-
Forest City proposed within the same deregulated zone
-
SEZ powers explicitly sought by Forest City founders
This isn’t a standalone housing project — it’s the next phase of Suffolk’s transformation into a deregulated corporate zone, and it demonstrates how temporary tax incentives become the foundation for permanent corporate governance.
Part 4 – What Forest City in Suffolk really is: a charter city
Forest City matches the charter city model point-for-point:
Charter City Feature – Does Forest City Match?
- Appointed trustees – Yes
- SEZ exemptions – Yes
- Private land uplift – Yes
- Limited local democracy – Yes
- State-enabled corporate governance – Yes
- Existing residents lack veto – Yes
- Long-term binding charters – Yes
- Transparency deferred – Yes
- Backed by libertarian think tanks – Yes
- Supported by anarcho-capitalist architect – Yes
- Masterplan over existing villages – Yes
Forest City is a charter city.
The branding is progressive.
The structure is libertarian-corporatist.
Part 5 – Why this matter: the fight for Britain’s democracy
Forest City is not a housing project.
It is a governance experiment.
It is a sovereignty transfer.
From:
- Local councils
- Residents
- Communities
- Elected representatives
To:
- Appointed trustees
- Private investors
- SEZ regulators
- Development corporations
This is corporate sovereignty replacing collective sovereignty.
If Forest City succeeds, it establishes a template where any consortium of private investors, libertarian architects and compliant politicians can carve off sections of Britain, seek SEZ status, install appointed governance, and override local democratic objections.
The fact that this has bipartisan support, from Tory think tanks to Labour grandees, shows how deeply the ideology has penetrated. “Zone Fever” isn’t a Conservative policy. It’s an elite consensus that democratic governance is too slow, too accountable, and too responsive to ordinary people’s concerns.
Part 6 – What citizens must do now
1. Reject intimidation.
Asking questions is not “shady”.
2. Demand immediate transparency.
Release the legal documents now, not in three years.
3. Support Suffolk communities.
Villages must have unconditional veto power.
4. Oppose the zone-ification of Britain.
Freeports, SEZs, AI Zones are all parts of the same structure.
5. Ask your MP a simple question:
Do you support transferring democratic authority to private corporations?
If the answer is yes — they must explain why.
If the answer is no — they must oppose Forest City.
Suffolk’s Forest City is a nefarious project
Malik’s own words reveal the truth:
- Residents will not control the land
- Trustees will be appointed
- SEZ powers will be sought
- Founders will receive massive land gifts
- Villages have no guaranteed veto
- Legal documents will be withheld
- The project is aligned with anarcho-capitalist ideology
- The rhetoric does not match the governance model
Forest City is not a democratic experiment. It is a charter city – the same model that:
- Contributed to a coup in Madagascar
- Was declared unconstitutional in Honduras
- Resulted in displaced residents facing death sentences in NEOM
Is now reborn in Suffolk
This is the story Malik does not want told.
Which is precisely why it must be told.
All quotes from Shiv Malik are from direct messages sent in response to questions about Forest City’s governance structure. Screenshots available for verification.
Featured image via Forest City
By David Powell
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