The Corporation declared an area in which the appellants owned some slum houses to be a slum clearance area and made a compulsory purchase order. Compensation was to be assessed under the 1919 Act and the 1959 Act. The appellants were entitled to receive in compensation the value of their land as sites cleared of buildings and available for re-development. The issue was whether this value was to be assessed on the footing that all the other buildings in the clearance area would be cleared away. This would have enhanced the value of the appellants’ land.
Held: The disregards introduced by section 9 of the 1959 Act prevented any such enhancement of value being reflected in the compensation. Viscount Dilhorne, citing Pointe Gourde: ‘By section 9(2) of the Act of 1959 Parliament, it seems to me, has given statutory expression to the principle which Lord MacDermott stated was well settled. Just as it would be wrong if the price to be paid for land compulsorily acquired was to be reduced if compulsory acquisition reduced its value, so, equally, would it be wrong if the price to be paid was increased as a result of what was proposed.’
Judges:
Viscount Dilhorne, Lord Cohen
Citations:
[1965] 1 WLR 445
Statutes:
Town and Country Planning Act 1959 9(1)
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Pointe Gourde Quarrying and Transport Co Ltd v Sub-Intendant of Crown Lands PC 29-Jul-1947
Under a wartime agreement in 1941 the UK government agreed to lease to the US Government land in Trinidad on which the US could establish a naval base. To do this the Crown acquired the Pointe Gourde land for its limestone quarry which would be used . .
Appeal from – Davy v Leeds Corporation CA 1964
Harman LJ described the section as ‘monstrous legislative morass’ and ‘a Slough of Despond’. . .
Cited by:
Cited – Waters and others v Welsh Development Agency HL 29-Apr-2004
Land was to be compulsorily purchased. A large development required the land to be used to create a nature reserve. The question was how and if at all the value of the overall scheme should be considered when assessing the compensation for this . .
Cited – Camrose v Basingstoke Corporation CA 1966
Basingstoke was to be expanded to receive overspill population from London and the corporation contracted to purchase about 550 acres from a landowner on terms that the price would be assessed as though the land had been compulsorily acquired under . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land, Damages
Updated: 29 April 2022; Ref: scu.196520