Telecommunications Act 1984 allowing appellant to site mobile phone masts on highway free of charge — Respondent allocating rateable value to land — Appellant maintaining land of no rateable value — Appeal dismissed
The appellant telecommunications company erected a mobile phone mast upon the grass verge of a publicly maintained highway. The small piece of land upon which the equipment was sited had been entered in the non-domestic rating list for the local district and given a rateable value. The appellant argued that no such value should have been attributed to the land. It claimed that, under the code to the Telecommunications Act 1984, it was permitted to install mobile telephone equipment on highway land without making payment or compensation to the highways authority.
The Lands Tribunal found that just because the code did not provide for payment for the occupation of the land did not mean that the occupation had no value in terms of the rating hypothesis used for the purposes of rating calculations as set out in para 2(1) of Schedule 6 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988. The appellant appealed. It argued that: (i) as a matter of practical reality, the only potential tenants for such hereditaments were telecommunication operators, which had a statutory right under the code to place masts in those locations; (ii) in any event, such operations were permitted a degree of latitude in the siting of masts so that any land being considered would not be the only available location; and (iii) on that basis, the tenant held negotiating power, which meant that the imposition of excessive rental demands by the potential landlord would be self-defeating.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
The issue in the appeal turned on the application of principles established in Poplar Assessment Committee v Roberts [1922] 2 AC 93. In regard to the instant case, the relevant principles determined, inter alia, that: (i) rates were to be levied on the basis of the value to the occupier of the occupation of the hereditament; (ii) the rent for the purposes of the statutory hypothesis as set out in para 2(1) of Schedule 6 was the value of the occupation to a hypothetical tenant, and the actual rent paid by the actual tenant was not determinative; (iii) the value of the occupation to the occupier was to be ascertained without reference to any specific circumstance personal to that occupier; and (iv) the specific purpose of a statute had to be taken into account.
Applying those principles, the right of the appellant, under the code, to have free occupation of the land upon which the mast was sited, did not amount to a negation of the value of the land. The fact that an operator made no payment for the right to locate its equipment in the highway, and could locate it in any suitable position free of charge, did not constitute evidence that, on the rating hypothesis, the hypothetical tenant and the hypothetical landlord would agree that the tenant’s occupation was valueless. Indeed, the value of the right was illustrated by the fact that if the appellant had erected the mast on privately owned land, it would have made a payment to the landowner by way of rent or under a licence agreement. The land was, therefore, clearly of value to the occupier for the purposes of establishing its rateable value.
Richard Glover (instructed by Stephenson Harwood) appeared for the appellant; Timothy Morshead (instructed by the solicitor to the Inland Revenue) appeared for the respondent.
Vivienne Lane, barrister
