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 plot.
Held: ‘All that was necessary, since it was clear that the section 6 disregards were irrelevant to the case, was to ask, first, whether the case fell within rule (3) of section 5 and, second, if it did not, to ask whether the alleged enhancement of value was part of the value of the land to the seller.’ Since only an authority seeking to create a nature reserve would attribute the value contended for it, the associated increase in value fell outside the assessment and compensation.
Lord Nicholls criticised the complexity of the law and commented: ‘Meanwhile, until Parliament takes action I suggest your Lordships’ House, so far as it may properly do so, should seek to simplify the law, always having in mind that the aim of compensation is to provide a fair financial equivalent for the land taken.’
Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, Lord Woolf, Lord Steyn, Lord Scott of Foscote, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
[2004] UKHL 19, Times 05-May-2004, Gazette 13-May-2004, [2004] 1 WLR 1304, [2004] NPC 68, [2004] RVR 153, [2004] 19 EGCS 165, [2004] 2 All ER 915
House of Lords, Bailii
Land Compensation Act 1961 5(3) 6
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Waters and others v Welsh Development Agency CA 28-Jun-2002
The claimant’s land was subject to a compulsory purchase order to make land available for a scheme to make possible a much larger and more valuable scheme. He asserted that the compensation should be calculated in accordance with the value of the . .
Cited – Stebbing v Metropolitan Board of Works 1870
In compensation for compulsory purchase (in this case, of graveyards), ‘value’ means value to the owner, not value to the purchaser. The graveyards were therefore of little or no value to the rector.
Cockburn CJ said: ‘When Parliament gives . .
Cited – Countess of Ossalinsky v Manchester Corporation 1883
Land bounding Thirlmere in the Lake District was acquired for use as a reservoir to supply water to Manchester. The prospect that the land, because of its particular characteristics, would be likely to be developed as a reservoir was a matter which . .
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 . .
Cited – Inland Revenue Commissioners v Clay CA 1914
The court considered the market value of a private residence. The evidence was that its value to persons wishing to use it as a private residence was 750 pounds. However, the house adjoined a nurses’ home the trustees of which wanted to extend their . .
Cited – Raja Vyricherla Narayana Gajapathiraju v Revenue Divisional Officer, Vizagapatam PC 23-Feb-1939
Land adjoining a harbour at Vizagapatam which at that time was malarial was to be valued for compulsory purchase. The land contained a spring of clean water. The only potential purchaser of the special adaptability of the land as a water supply was . .
Cited – In re Gough and Aspatria, Silloth and District Joint Water Board CA 1904
. .
Cited – Horn v Sunderland Corporation CA 1941
Compulsory Purchase Damages limited to Actual Loss
Rule (6) was designed to preserve the effect of the 19th Century case-law under the 1845 Act, by which personal loss caused by the compulsory acquisition was treated as part of the value to the owner of the land: ‘the owner in a proper case – that . .
Cited – In re Lucas and Chesterfield Gas and Water Board CA 1909
Land suitable for construction of a reservoir was the subject of a compulsory purchase for that purpose. The circumstances made it very unlikely that anyone other than the Water Board would have wanted, or been able, to construct the reservoir and . .
Cited – Cedars Rapids Manufacturing and Power Co v Lacoste PC 1914
Land at the St Lawrence river was to be valued for a compulsory purchase.
Held: Value does not mean the value of ‘the realized undertaking as it exists in the hands of the undertaker’. It means the price which possible undertakers would give. . .
Cited – Rugby Joint Water Board v Shaw-Fox HL 1973
The water board obtained a compulsory purchase order to buy agricultural land adjoining a reservoir. The land was subject to protected tenancies under the 1948 Act.
Held: (Majority) Because the land subject to notices to treat was required for . .
Doubted – Lambe v Secretary of State for War CA 1955
The acquiring authority was a sitting tenant and the compulsory purchase order related to the freehold reversion.
Held: Rule 3 was inapplicable. The marriage value which a reversion has for a sitting tenant does not clothe the land with a . .
Cited – Fraser v City of Fraserville PC 1917
One ground on which the arbitrators’ valuation award on a compulsory purchase, was set aside was that, in valuing the falls of a river and adjacent land acquired for electricity generation purposes, the arbitrators had taken into account the . .
Cited – Batchelor v Kent County Council CA 1989
The Council had compulsorily acquired land for highway improvement. It was within an area scheduled for residential development. Outline permission for development of neighbouring land had been granted but the development could not proceed until the . .
Cited – Myers v Milton Keynes Development Corporation CA 1974
Land was to be acquired for the development of a new town. The court faced the issue, in the context of a valuation for compulsory purchase, of whether the required disregard of any increase in value attributable to the ‘scheme’ meant that the . .
Cited – Wilson v Liverpool Corporation CA 1971
The claimants owned 74 acres of an area of 391 acres in Liverpool which the Corporation wanted to acquire for residential development. The authority acquired the land by agreement and made a compulsory purchase order in respect of the remainder.
Cited – Kaye v Basingstoke Corporation LT 1968
The Tribunal discussed compensation on compulsory purchase, and how the extent of the underlying scheme was to be identified: ‘Before the 1939 war it is broadly, perhaps entirely, true to say that the application of the common law rule was . .
Cited – Davy v Leeds Corporation HL 1965
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 . .
Doubted – 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 . .
Cited – Bird and Bird v Wakefield Metropolitan Borough Council 1976
The underlying scheme to be disregarded when calculating compensation on a compulsory purchase need not, as a matter of law, be confined to the area of land compulsorily acquired or to the specific purposes of the CPO. The acquisition may be only a . .
Cited – Stokes v Cambridge Corporation LT 1961
The tribunal considered case concerned 5.1 ha of land with an assumption of planning permission for industrial development under Planning legislation. There was only one possible access over adjoining land in different ownership.
Held: When . .
At LT – Waters and others v Welsh Development Agency LT 3-Nov-2000
LT COMPENSATION – Compulsory purchase of land for purpose of nature reserve to compensate for loss of SSSI caused by Cardiff Bay Barrage – preliminary issues – Land Compensation Act 1961 s 5 rule (3) – Pointe . .
Cited by:
Cited – Faraday v Carmarthenshire County Council CA 10-May-2004
The claimant appealed against an award of compensation on the compulsory acquisition of his land by the defendant.
Held: The award was incorrect. The authority had wrongly deducted a sum in respect of ‘freed up time’ – which would have allowed . .
Cited – Moto Hospitality Ltd v Secretary of State for Transport CA 26-Jul-2007
The company sought damages to its business on a motorway service station when works closed an access road.
Held: The Secretary of State’s appeal succeeded. A claim for compensation under section 10 had not been established, at least in respect . .
Cited – Transport for London (London Underground Ltd) v Spirerose Ltd HL 30-Jul-2009
Compulsory Purchase Compensation – Land As it Is
The House considered the basis of calculation of compensation on the compulsory purchase of land without planning permission, but where permission would probably be granted. The appellant challenged the decision which had treated the probability as . .
Cited – Star Energy Weald Basin Ltd and Another v Bocardo Sa SC 28-Jul-2010
The defendant had obtained a licence to extract oil from its land. In order to do so it had to drill out and deep under the Bocardo’s land. No damage at all was caused to B’s land at or near the surface. B claimed in trespass for damages. It now . .
Cited – Homes and Communities Agency v JS Bloor (Wilmslow) Ltd SC 22-Feb-2017
Challenge to the sums awarded on compulsory acquisition of grazing land, but which land had a substantial hope value for residential development.
Held: The tribunal’s application of these difficult provisions to the complex facts of this case . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land, Damages
Leading Case
Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.196078