Compulsory purchase – Blight notice – Compensation – Section 17 of Land Compensation Act 1961 – Claimant landowner obtaining certificate of appropriate alternative development from local planning authority under section 17 – Compensation claim referred to Lands Tribunal – Acquiring authority subsequently applying for leave to seek second certificate specifying lesser development – Whether leave to be given – Whether tribunal able to make determination between two conflicting certificates when assessing compensation – Application dismissed
The claimant owned 32 acres of agricultural land in Cheshire that was affected by proposals for a new trunk road. He served a blight notice on the Highways Agency (the acquiring authority), which was accepted in October 1997, giving rise to a deemed compulsory purchase of the land. Negotiations ensued as to compensation. In December 2000, the local planning authority, responding to an application by the claimant, issued a certificate of appropriate alternative development, under section 17 of the Land Compensation Act 1961, indicating that planning permission would have been granted for an equestrian centre on the claimant’s land and for a country club comprising golf facilities, tennis courts, bowling green, outdoor swimming pool and fishing. The acquiring authority did not appeal against the certificate and took no steps to challenge its validity by way of judicial review. Negotiations continued on the basis of the certificate.
In November 2003, the parties agreed that should the matter of compensation be referred to the Lands Tribunal, the acquiring authority would accept the validity of that claim and would not rely on any statutory limitation defence. The claimant subsequently made such a reference. The acquiring authority, advised by planning consultants, wanted to have compensation assessed on the basis that, at the relevant date, the local planning authority would have granted planning permission only for the equestrian centre and not for any other class of development. To that end, it sought to apply to the local planning authority for a further section 17 certificate in those terms. It applied to the tribunal, under section 17(2) of the 1961 Act, for leave to apply for such a certificate.
Decision: The application was dismissed.
When assessing compensation, the Lands Tribunal was required by section 15(5) of the 1961 Act to assume the grant of planning permission for the development specified in any section 17 certificate. It was therefore obliged to assume the development specified in the certificate issued in 2000. The requirement to make that assumption was unqualified and no question arose of it being negated, in whole or in part, by a subsequent section 17 certificate that specified more limited development and stated the opinion of the local planning authority that planning permission would not be granted for any other development. That view was confirmed by the provisions of section 14(3A)(b), which, while requiring the tribunal to have regard to any contrary opinion expressed in a certificate for the purpose of determining whether the assumptions in section 16 were applicable, expressly excluded any such exercise in relation to the section 15 assumptions.
Where two inconsistent section 17 certificates affected the same land, the tribunal was not entitled to resolve any inconsistency between them. It could not choose which certificate it preferred when applying section 15(5) and then assess compensation on that basis. Instead, section 15(5) obliged it to assume the grant of planning permission for the development specified in each certificate and could not have regard to any negative opinion in either certificate that conflicted with any such assumption: Hoveringham Gravels Ltd v Chiltern District Council (1977) 243 EG 911 distinguished.
The only purpose of the acquiring authority in seeking a new certificate was to reduce the ambit of the 2000 certificate by having regard to such negative opinion as the later certificate might contain. For the foregoing reasons, that could not be done. Accordingly, permission to apply for a new certificate was refused.
James Neill (instructed by Dechert LLP) appeared for the claimant; David Blundell (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the acquiring authority.
Sally Dobson, barrister
