The DWP aren't alone in this pointless waste of IPs - it's just the scale of their squandering that's worse than usual. I know of many companies doing the same with (multiple) class B ranges. Far too much of the IPv4 space is dark for this reason - an early land grab followed by ignorant deployment. Perhaps only now we're getting to the right level of scarcity and open market value for something to be done about it.