[db-wg] status: LEGACY -- Stranger and stranger

Ronald,

There are likely to be others on this list that know more about this 
than I do…

> Has the UK government been so hard up for cash in recent years that it
> has taken to selling off any spare /16 blocks that it happens to have
> lying around?  If so, who should I talk to about placing a bid for the
> next one they decide to unload?

That might not have been the motivation, but the result is the same, 
yes.

The “Department for Work and Pensions” held 51/8, which was heavily 
used internally and on the Public Services Network, but not routed on 
the Internet.

Every so often, a tech news article would pop up complaining about all 
this “unused” space lying around, or someone would send in a Freedom 
of Information request demanding to know what the government was doing 
with it(*).

Around 2015, I presume that they decided it was less bother to start 
selling off the space than it was to cope with the comments, so that’s 
what they did — Microsoft and Sky bought some, other bits went 
elsewhere…

Cheers,
Rob

(*) One such response from 2014 is here: 
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/214257/response/529770/attach/html/3/FOI2420%20Scott%20Mark%20WDTK%20Reply.pdf.html