Acquisition of land for highway purposes – Agreement to refer valuation of land acquired to Lands Tribunal for purpose of purchase price – Whether underlying scheme construction of whole of link road or completion of link road
Between 1971 and 1974 JA Pye (Oxford) Ltd (Pye), purchased land, the Pye land, forming the greater part of an area identified for development by the Bristol East Fringe study of 1970 and applied for planning permission. The then highway authority agreed to provide a new link road crossing part of the land. Development south of the link road was to be for industrial use and north of the road for residential use. In July 1979 an agreement under section 52 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 was made between Kingswood Borough Council (Kingswood), Avon County Council (Avon), and Pye, subject to planning permission which was granted on July 23 1979 with conditions. Two of those conditions, reflecting clauses 9 and 15 respectively of the section 52 agreement, stated: (a) that no more than 40% of the industrial development should be brought into use until completion of the link road; and (b) that development of the north land should not be commenced before the completion of the link road.
By the beginning of 1988 the link road was complete, apart from a short unbuilt section crossing a 276 sq m area of land at North Common, Warmley, the reference land, which was owned by Kingswood. On January 13 1988, Kingswood entered into a contract to sell to Avon the reference land. The agreement provided, inter alia: (1) that it was made to enable the development contemplated by the section 52 agreement to be carried out; and (2) that the purchase price was to be determined by a reference to the Lands Tribunal, the tribunal, in which reference Pye would be permitted to act on behalf of Avon and it was to be assumed that Avon had made an unopposed compulsory purchase order for the acquisition of the reference land for highway purposes. The tribunal found that, applying Pointe Gourde Quarrying & Transport Co Ltd v Sub-Intendent of Crown Lands [1947] AC 565 and Wards Construction (Medway) Ltd v Barclays Bank plc (1994) 68 P&CR 391, the scheme for which the reference land was acquired was the completion of construction of the link road. It valued the reference land at £756,500, the enhancing factor being the fact that the reference land was the key which unlocked for Pye the full development value in the north land and the south land. Without that factor, the tribunal held that the land would have been worth no more than £650. Pye appealed.
Held The appeal was allowed in part.
1. Identification of the Point Gourde “scheme underlying the acquisition” was a question of fact for the fact finding tribunal. It had been accepted by both parties that the purchase was “for highway purposes” and that the underlying scheme did not extend beyond the construction of the link road. Pye contended that the scheme was the construction of the whole of the link road. Kingswood contended that it was simply its completion. The tribunal preferred the contention of Kingswood, and Pye had failed to show that this finding disclosed any error of law.
2. Furthermore Pye had failed to make out that the enhanced value of the reference land should be excluded. Pye’s interest in acquiring the land was precisely analgous to an interest in the acquisition of access land without which other land could not be developed: see Batchelor v Kent County Council [1990] 1 EGLR 32. Pye’s appeal on this ground therefore failed.
3. However, the tribunal had overlooked Pye’s argument that a distinction ought to be made between the two blocks of development land because clause 15 related solely to “the development” of the north land, and “the development” was defined in the July 1979 agreement as being development consequent on planning consents. The award would therefore be remitted for reconsideration taking into account the limited effect of clause 15 on the July 1979 agreement.
Robin Purchas QC and John Harvey (instructed by Burroughs Day, of Bristol) appeared for JA Pye (Oxford) Ltd; Christopher Cochrane QC and Adrian Trevelyan-Thomas (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard) appeared for Kingswood Borough Council.