England did reclaim land from the sea, infact, they hired the Dutch to help them do it. The Fenlands, on the East of England near Lincolnshire were historically very marshy lands, primarily used for fishing. In the 1630s these lands were drained under orders of Charles I, to make way for arable land for agricultural purposes. The occupants of the Fenlands were not too happy with their land being disrupted in this way, and made efforts to sabotage these plans, and while this did postpone and cause issue with the plans, it did not halt them.

Much of the Fens as we know them today would have been submerged or too marshy to do much with, and some of the original draining projects failed leading to them flooding again, however there have since been great projects in draining them. Prior to the 1800s (even after the initial draining), the Fens were liable to flood with the changing of the seasons, however the modern embankment projects has protected these lands from flooding over since then, making for a much larger amount of arable land which will not be destroyed by the natural elements.

On the same note, Sealand, near Chester along the River Dee, has a similar story. During the 1730s, Dutch engineers were again hired to reshape the course of the River Dee, through a privately funded project of constructing canals to redirect the course of the river. This saw the river redirected along a new, man-made channel which runs for about 5 miles, had a few effects on the land in the area. First, it enabled shipping lanes along the river to take a more direct and safer root which was troubled less by the silting of the river. This was the original intention of the project, as it enabled Chester to hang on for a short time longer as a shipping and port town, allowing merchants to continue their trade within the city.

This project also enabled the reclamation of the lands which are now known as Sealand, Garden City, Queensferry and Shotton in North Eastern Wales. These lands were previously either submerged or too marshy for agriculture or industry. Following the drainage, we see the rise of industry in the area, with the construction of the John Summers Steelworks, which turned into the heart of one of the largest steel empires within the United Kingdom during the 1890s-1950s.

This industry was made possible by the previous redirection of the river and reclamation of land, as the steelworks heavily utilised shipping along the River Dee (the bridges from the era are all suspension bridges, to allow ships to pass beneath) and the land which was previously submerged. These redirected river paths could be used to move steel from Shotton to Chester, and from there to anywhere else in the country that it was needed, via barge. Of course, rivers were not the only transportation used, as this time also saw the rise of rail within the area, leading the bridges to be unused as suspension bridges. Additionally, much of the land situated between Chester and Garden City, which would have been un-arable marshes, are now farmlands, and are presently used for livestock (primarily sheep, because Wales) and crops.

So, in response to your question, we have taken quite a bit of land from the sea here in the United Kingdom. Although it is not nearly as much in proportion to the land we had prior to reclamation, like in the Netherlands, we still did it, albeit with a little help. We hired the Dutch to do this for us due to their expertise in embankment, canal building and draining, as their own country demands that this be done much more often than in the United Kingdom. There are likely more examples of this throughout the United Kingdom which I am not aware of and I cannot answer why the Dutch reclaimed so much land, however, I felt I could at least contribute this much to the discussion.