Land was acquired for a new highway. The developer had persuaded or agreed with the public authority that it would exercise its statutory powers to acquire land possessed of ransom value.
Held: What the scheme was which underlined a proposed compulsory acquisition was a matter of fact for the tribunal or court. The statutory powers must relate to the use of the acquired land and must be powers enabling the use of the land for a statutory purpose and to be necessary for that purpose. This excludes planning permission or other general consents. They do not include agreements to do works on land owned by a statutory authority.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern: ‘The special suitability or adaptability of the land for any purpose is directed to be left out of account if that purpose is a purpose to which it could be applied only in pursuance of statutory powers. This is expressed in the passive voice but the context shows that the application referred to is by a person using the land and, therefore, the statutory powers in question must be powers enabling a person entitled to use the land to apply it to the purpose in question and since the purpose in question is one to which the land could be applied only in pursuance of the statutory powers the statutory powers must be necessary to enable such person to use the land for that purpose. I do not see how statutory powers not related to the use of the land acquired could form a basis for the application of this part of the rule.
Therefore, I consider that statutory powers conferred upon the Secretary of State to order the stopping up of a highway on land which is not part of the land being acquired could not form the basis of the application of this part of the rule to the land acquired. Since the only statutory powers here relied upon by the council are the statutory powers of the Secretary of State to stop up parts of Thorley Lane, I consider that the council’s argument must fail.’
and ‘ . . in the present case the land acquired could have been used for a highway without the exercise of any statutory power and certainly was not dependent upon the Secretary of State exercising any statutory power to stop up any part of Thorley Lane.’ and
He then drew a distinction between a general statutory consent (eg planning permission), which does not fall within the rule, and a particular statutory power (113C):-
‘This I think goes to emphasise the distinction referred to by counsel for the claimants when he pointed out that, if the present case were covered by the rule, it was very difficult to see why the rule should not also cover a purpose to which a piece of land could be put only after obtaining some particular statutory consent such as planning permission, consent under the Building Acts, or the like. It is clear from the modern statutory provisions governing compensation for the compulsory acquisition of land and the question of what types of development would receive planning consent is highly relevant to the determination of compensation for compulsory acquisition and any construction of the provision founded upon which resulted in any enhancement of the value of a piece of land resulting from its use for a purpose which required planning permission being disregarded would be absurd.’ He approved the conclusion that ‘the first limb of the provisions of rule (3) cannot apply in that special suitability or adaptability of the land can be realised other than by the use of statutory powers.’
Judges:
Lord Mackay
Citations:
[1989] 2 EGLR 18, [1991] 1 WLR 105
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – J A Pye (Oxford) Limited v Kingswood Borough Council CA 6-Apr-1998
The purchase of land which was to form the last part of a development was to be valued without taking account of the enhanced value which would be attributed to the much larger scheme of development. To ascertain what is to be ignored by the valuer . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land, Damages
Updated: 01 May 2022; Ref: scu.238657