New bill to extend compulsory purchase without hope value

Compulsory purchase powers will be extended with the introduction of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, expected this week.

The bill widens the ability of councils to disapply hope value in the calculation of the price paid to a landowner where the land is being bought for the construction of social and affordable housing, or for educational and NHS purposes.

Previously, compulsory purchase (CP) in these circumstances required a direction from the secretary of state to remove hope value.

See also: Compulsory-purchase-reform-ahead-whats-planned

To speed up the process, the government wants to give planning inspectors the power to make such a direction and to confirm compulsory purchase orders which include them.

The bill is expected to also extend the ability to disapply hope value to include CP orders made on behalf of parish, town or community councils by local authorities under section 125 of the Local Government Act 1972.

Drive for housing

Planning lawyers have commented that this generally pushes in the direction of delivering more housing and makes it more likely that a landowner will be served with a CP order.

A consultation on the reforms referred to the government’s desire that landowners should get a “fair” rather than “elevated” value for land taken by CP.

However, “fair” in this instance simply means agricultural value, which many argue goes against the principle of equivalence, which sets out that CP should leave a landowner in no worse a position than before their land was taken.

“Hope value is real value, not a made-up value,” said Country Land and Business Association chief surveyor Andrew Shirley.

The bill is expected to take one to two years to become law, so many advisers suggest that landowners with development potential they wish to take forward should do so sooner rather than later.

Planning fees to rise

Many planning fees are also set to rise substantially on 1 April, with some more than doubling.

Any that have not otherwise been increased will rise by 1.7%, with an annual increase following that in line with the Consumer Prices Index, but with a cap of 10%.

The government is also considering whether to allow individual planning authorities to set their own planning fees.