Compulsory acquisition for construction of bypass – Owners applying for certificates of appropriate alternative development – Secretary of State issuing negative certificates – Owners alleging error in specifying and applying relevant date – Appeals allowed – Secretary of State appealing
Two parcels of land at Sundorne, Shrewsbury, were proposed by the Department of Transport for compulsory purchase for the purpose of constructing the A49 Shrewsbury bypass for which plans had existed since 1952. The date of the proposal to acquire was January 30 1986. The date of entry was July 5 1990. Towards the end of 1992 the landowners applied to the local authority for certificates of appropriate alternative development under section 17 of the Land Compensation Act 1961, the purpose being to ascertain what would have been the development value of the land but for the acquisition proposal. The local authority certified that permission would have been granted in one case for residential development, and in the other for residential and industrial development. The Secretary of State for Transport appealed against the certificates to the Secretary of State for the Environment, who, by decision letter dated July 4 1996, substituted (negative) certificates to the effect that planning permission would not have been granted for any development other than that proposed by the Secretary of State for Transport.
In combined appeals to the High Court under section 21 of the 1961 Act, the landowners contended that the Secretary of State for the Environment had erred: (i) by taking the date of entry as the relevant date for considering the application of current and reasonably foreseeable planning policies; (ii) by not discounting the adverse planning consequences of the bypass scheme over the years before January 30 1986. The judge allowed the appeal of the landowners and quashed the decisions made under section 18 of the Act. The Secretary of State for the Environment appealed.
There were two issues: (1) whether the relevant date at which the decision under section 17(4) had to be made was the section 22(2)(a) date, the notice date, or the date of entry on the land; and (2) in making that decision whether the words “if it were not proposed to be acquired” in section 17(4) meant that there should be discounted: (a) the section 22(2)(a) compulsory acquisition, and the proposal underlying that acquisition as it stood at the relevant date; or (b) additionally the facts and policies that resulted from the underlying scheme that culminated in that compulsory acquisition.
Held The appeals were allowed.
When considering the grant of a certificate under section 17(4) of the 1961 Act in a case to which section 22(2)(a) applied, the land was to be valued as at the date of the publication of notice of the compulsory purchase order, discounting only that acquisition and the proposal underlying it as it stood on the date of the notice. This could be conveniently expressed as a valuation on the basis that the proposal had been cancelled on the date of that notice: Robert Hitchins Builders Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment [1978] 2 EGLR 125 overruled; Jelson v Minister of Housing and Local Government [1970] 1 QB 243 explained.
Duncan Ouseley QC and Rabinder Singh (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the Secretary of State for the Environment; Robin Purchas QC and Timothy Comyn (instructed by Manby & Steward, of Telford) appeared for the respondents.
