Land required for waste disposal — Confirmation of compulsory purchase order — Publication of consultation paper on privatisation of waste disposal — Waste disposal authorities would no longer have control over sites for disposal — Whether Secretary of State failed to take into account a relevant matter — Proper tests for confirmation of a CPO — Appeal against decision quashing order dismissed
In March 1987 the appellant, the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority, made a compulsory purchase order in respect of 195 acres of land at Red Moss, Horwich, Bolton, which included land belonging to the respondent council; on March 28 1989 the order was confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Environment. The council’s application under the Acquisition of Land Act 1981, section 23, for an order quashing that decision on the ground that the minister failed to have regard to a consultative paper, The Role and Functions of Waste Disposal Authorities, was allowed by Hodgson J (April 5 1990). That paper proposed alterations to waste disposal authorities by which private companies could compete for waste disposal contracts and waste disposal authorities would no longer be able to direct where waste disposal would take place.
The appellant authority appealed that decision primarily on the ground that Hodgson J wrongly rejected the contention that unless a decision maker is expressly required by law to take into account some matter, then he is only impliedly required to take that matter into account if it is one which no reasonable decision maker would fail to take into account, because it is fundamental to the decision which he has to take. Further it is for the decision maker to decide what is relevant to take into account.
Held The appeal was dismissed.
The appellants’ submissions were not accepted. The consultative paper was a relevant matter and had been brought to the attention of the department by one of the council’s officers. The Secretary of State for the Environment had therefore failed to take into account a relevant matter. The concern of the council was that the authority would have to direct the disposal of waste to sites of the successful tenderers and this was a matter to be taken into account in deciding whether the CPO for the Red Moss site should be confirmed. The Secretary of State might have made a different decision had he considered the consequences of the consultative paper produced by his own department.
Jeremy Sullivan QC and Peter Village (instructed by Gouldens) appeared for the appellant Greater Manchester Waste Authority; and David Keene QC and Charles Cross (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard) appeared for the respondents, Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council. The second respondent, the Secretary of State for the Environment, did not appear and was not represented.
