Refusal to purchase applicants’ house under Highways Act 1980 — Bypass construction near their home — Secretary of State maintaining applicants had foreknowledge of road construction — Whether factor which minister entitled to take into account — Judicial review refused
The applicants, O and his wife, were owners of Ashgrove, The Whiteway, Cirencester. They found the property in March 1990 at about the time that the Department of Transport announced the preferred route of the A417 Stratton/Cirencester Bypass. In May 1990 the department informed the applicants, by letter, of the preferred route of the bypass and sent them a map showing the line that the preferred route would take. In November 1990 the applicants completed the purchase and spent money on improvements to it. In late 1991 details of the bypass proposals and draft orders were published. The applicants made an application to the Secretary of State requesting acquisition of the premises under section 246 of the 1980 Act. This was refused as the Secretary of State did not accept that they: (i) would suffer substantial hardship if they could not move; and (ii) had no foreknowledge of the preferred route.
The applicants unsuccessfully appealed to the High Court and then to the Court of Appeal, which asked the Secretary of State to reconsider. He then decided that their enjoyment of the property had been seriously affected by the bypass, but refused purchase nevertheless and thereupon took into account foreknowledge. He stated, inter alia, in his decision letter that the preferred route announcement had given a clear indication of the location of the route; so that the amount of information in the applicants’ possession was such as to alert them to the effects and impact of the bypass on the quiet location which they sought and that they had not made further inquiries about it. The applicants applied for judicial review.
Held The application for judicial review was refused.
1. In the opinion of the court, the principle of foreseeability was a matter which the Secretary of State, in his discretion, was entitled to take into account irrespective of the purchase price. Thus, foreknowledge did not apply only where someone had bought a property at a discounted price reflecting the blighting caused by the development.
2. The question then arose whether there was material before the Secretary of State upon which he could have reasonably come to the conclusion that the applicants either had knowledge, or had access to knowledge, so as to have had sufficient information of the scheme. That was not for the court to decide, but was for the Secretary of State to do so. The court could only interfere with his conclusion if it was without reason or perverse.
3. The Secretary of State had accepted that the detailed proposals for the scheme were not available to the applicants and was only published in December 1991. But it was clear that they knew or ought to have known that there would be a substantial road scheme passing very close to the property, which they proposed to purchase. The detrimental effects of such a scheme were well known. In the Secretary of State’s view that was sufficient to have alerted the applicants to the necessity for making some further reasonable inquiries.
4. The court did not have to decide whether it would have come to the same conclusion as the Secretary of State. It had to determine whether it was possible to say that the conclusion he reached was one which could be challenged as Wednesbury unreasonable.
5. There was no perversity or irrationality in the decision and the application accordingly would be dismissed.
The applicants appeared in person; David Elvin (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the Secretary of State for Transport.
