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Introduction
The House of Lords decision in Transport for London v. Spirerose Ltd [2009] 1 WLR 1797 is one of the most important in recent years and makes significant changes to the planning assumptions to be made when valuing land which is subject to compulsory purchase. It also casts doubt on the well established principle that land should be valued as if offered for sale by a hypothetical willing seller in its actual physical condition at the valuation date. It suggests instead that the land should be valued is if sold at such time, and together with such other land, as would have been likely in the no-scheme world.
It is inevitable that such an important decision will be used by advocates to stretch the established boundaries of the compensation claim, and in this update I will look at a couple of cases in which those boundaries have had to be reaffirmed. In particular Spirerose does not permit the land to taken to be valued as an operational hotel at the valuation date, when in fact it is actually a scruffy block of shops and flats!
I also consider a couple of cases which look at disturbance under rule 6 and the extent to which the disturbance claim can include items based on the value of land.
I start, however, with a rare case concerning compensation for the revocation or amendment of terms attached to a planning consent.
Compensation for changes to planning conditions
The Court of Appeal decision in MWH Associates and Wrexham Borough Council (2013) All E R (D) 113 (Feb) caught my eye as it has relevance to a property I manage. My site is used for sand extraction but is within a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Because of this designation the minerals planning authority is obliged to review the planning permission and the conditions attached to it and amend those conditions if appropriate. Again because of the conservation designation, there has to be a strong chance that the conditions will be amended in such a way that sand extraction will have to cease, for example if sand can no longer be stored on site. At the very least, the operation is likely to be made less profitable. The...