Motorway service area — Esso holding options on land within CPO — Planning permission refused to Esso — Esso intending to develop the service area — Necessity for compulsory purchase powers — Proper application of planning policies — Whether premium value to department a material consideration — Whether wider public interests justify compulsory powers — Applications by owners dismissed
The fifth applicants, Esso, hold options to purchase land identified as a suitable site for a motorway service area (“MSA”) on the M20 at Hollingbourne, Kent. In July 1989 their application for planning permission to develop the MSA was refused by the first respondent, the Secretary of State for the Environment (“SSE”), who gave planning clearance for the development of the site to the third respondent, the Secretary of State for Transport (“SST”). The first four applicants, the affected landowners, and Esso applied to quash the planning decisions of the SSE and to challenge the SST’s confirmation of the compulsory purchase order (“CPO”).
For the applicants it was submitted that once the SSE had discounted the premium value in the affected land that would accrue to the SST by its monopoly in supplying the MSA site, and choosing an operator as a material consideration, to withhold planning permission to Esso was indefensible, and since Esso had options on the land the CPO was unnecessary.
Held The applications were dismissed.
1. The SSE was entitled to apply the provisions in the policy statement of the SST, of July 1 1987, in relation to the provision of MSA sites and the need for Department of Transport control. The best use will be made of the land if the SST has control and can choose the operator. The policy should be maintained because the control offered by Esso by way of section 52 agreements and planning agreements may lead to more serious problems of negotiation than the obtaining of a CPO. If the policy is waived in this case it would set a precedent to encourage other operators to acquire options, which would stifle competition, which is what the policy statement foresaw and sought to guard against.
2. A CPO should not be used wholly or even partly for an ulterior purpose, such as to obtain a premium. But the CPO was not made for that purpose; it was made to give effect to the policy of the government having direct control of an MSA by obtaining planning clearance in the name of the SST and leasing the sites subject to covenants.
Jeremy Sullivan QC and Nicholas Huskinson (instructed by Norton Rose) appeared for the applicants; and John Laws and Michael Harris (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the respondents.
