A compulsory purchase order intended to bring an historic London wharf back into action has been quashed by the High Court.
Site owners Grafton Group and British Dredging Services triumphed in an attack on the transport secretary’s decision last year to confirm the CPO covering Orchard Wharf, on the river Thames opposite the o2 Arena.
Ouseley J ruled that the transport secretary’s decision to confirm the CPO, taken at the same time as he rejected an application for planning permission to carry out the port development put forward by Aggregate Industries UK and London Concrete, had been “unfair”.
He found that the inspector, on whose recommendations the decisions were made, had failed to seek submissions from the parties on the possibility that he might recommend confirmation of the CPO despite recommending refusal of the planning application, and failed to give Grafton an opportunity to address whether some alternative scheme warranted the making of the CPO.
He said that there was no way that Grafton could have anticipated this, as it had come to the inquiry to meet a case based on the scheme put forward, and nothing had alerted it to the need to defend the CPO on the basis that any reasonable aggregates handling facility with some unspecified throughput would suffice for a CPO.
He said: “Grafton had no opportunity to address the basis upon which the secretary of state confirmed the CPO. Grafton did not have the opportunity to comment on the prospect of an acceptable scheme with sufficient changes being designed so as to achieve the same approximate throughput as the appeal scheme. It had no chance to give evidence that the only acceptable scheme could not achieve that throughput.
“The CPO was confirmed, in my judgment, on a basis which Grafton had no real chance to deal with. This was an unfair decision.”
Though long unused, Orchard Wharf in Tower Hamlets, east London, has been safeguarded by the Greater London Authority since 1997. The Port of London Authority sought through the CPO to buy the wharf and ultimately put it to use, in a move it says will support increased use of the Thames for cargo transport and boost London’s economic growth.
At the hearing in February, Peter Village QC, representing the landowners, argued that the alleged need for additional wharf capacity had not been made out.
The transport secretary is to seek permission to appeal at an adjourned hearing.
Grafton Group (UK) plc and anr v Secretary of State for Transport Planning Court (Ouseley J) 21 April 2015
Peter Village QC and James Burton (instructed by Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co) for the claimant
Charles Banner (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the defendant
Russell Harris QC (instructed by Bircham Dyson Bell LLP) for the first interested party
