Wayleave hearing — Applicant objecting to wayleave over his land — Hearing aborted due to illness of person conducting it — Whether applicant entitled to costs of aborted hearing — Whether procedure analogous to planning inquiry — Whether power to award costs — High Court finding no such power
National Grid Company (NGC), the licence holder under the Electricity Act 1989, sought a new overhead line between Thorpe Arch and Easdike, Yorkshire, which crossed the present applicant’s land. The Secretary of State for the Department of Trade and Industry was required under the Act to hold a public inquiry if the local planning authority objected and in other cases where he thought it “appropriate”. The applicant, as a private objector was entitled to have an “opportunity to be heard” once NGC applied for a compulsory wayleave. The hearing was confined to the “promoter” and objectors, ie owners of land affected who had not given consent.
The seven-day hearing took place; thereafter it was adjourned for closing submissions, but the inspector was unable to continue due to illness. The costs were approximately £120,000. The DTI stated that there was no provision for any party to a wayleave hearing to pay the costs of another party.
In an application for leave to challenge that decision, the applicant submitted that there was a power under the Local Government Act 1972 on the basis that the proceedings were in substance (if not in name) an “inquiry” and that they “relate to functions of the local authority”, ie functions of the local planning authority. Alternatively under the Electricity Act, a wayleave hearing was an inquiry and therefore covered by costs provisions of the 1972 Act. They contended that wayleaves procedures were analogous to costs incurred in planning (including compulsory purchase) proceedings: see Circular 8/93.
Held The application was refused.
1. Even assuming that a wayleave hearing was an “inquiry” it was not one held under an enactment “relating to” local authority functions. While it was true that the word “functions” had a broad meaning, there had to be some more substantial relationship between the enactment and the specific role of the local authority. There could be very few modern statutes which did not involve the local authority at some stage, if only as a consultee. If that were a sufficient relationship the qualification would have little meaning.
2. With regard to the Electricity Act, the court could not accept that a “hearing” was an “inquiry”. In the context of the Act as a whole a clear distinction was drawn between procedures involving a “public inquiry” and those conferring an “opportunity to be heard”.
3. While the court was thus forced to hold that there was no power to award costs, it did so with some reluctance, as it was difficult to see why an objector to compulsory wayleave should be any worse off in relation to costs than, eg an objector to revocation orders under the planning legislation. The power was directly concerned with interference with private rights in the public interest but while the problem was finally rectified for planning procedures, it appeared to have been overlooked in other contexts such as the Electricity Act.
W Robert Griffiths QC and Peter Village (instructed by Pinsent Curtis) appeared for the applicant; David Holgate (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the Secretary of State to the Department of Trade and Industry; Meyric Lewis (instructed by Oswald Hickson Collier) appeared for NGC.
