Nicholas Hancox

If ever an area of law were mis-named, this is it. The compulsion in Compulsory Purchase Law is all on the vendor; it really should be called "Compulsory Sale Law". But the name has stuck and the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965, the Acquisition of Land Act 1981 and the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 all use the long-accepted phrase.

I have been making Compulsory Purchase Orders for local authorities since 1973. Most of the CPO's I have made were for highway schemes for Southampton City Council and for Norfolk County Council, when I used to work for those Councils between 1974 and 1996. I have lost count of them all, but Southampton's Bitterne By-Pass Order in the late 1970's was great fun and so was Norfolk's Fakenham By-Pass Order, about ten years later. The Boundary Junction Order in Norwich and the Northfield suburban by-pass CPO in Birmingham are two other highways CPO’s that I remember fondly.

I have also made several CPO's for housing. One in Andover in 1973 comes particularly to mind, as does a much more vigorously-opposed one in Dagenham in 1998. I have also advised local authority and RDA clients on various CPO's for a sewerage pumping station, for economic development and two for town-centre shopping development projects, where the Councils or the RDA were working in partnership with local land-owner developers.

My client list, since I set up my own practice in 2003, includes a housing developer who was concerned about a deal he was doing to buy land from a local authority. Could the authority CPO the access land and hold him to ransom? Another current client was served with a CPO from a local authority and I was able to help him persuade the Council that their CPO was never going to be confirmed. They had quoted the wrong Act of Parliament, they had got the parcels of land wrong and the whole thing was ultra vires. We won on the technicalities and we never got as far as arguing the substantive merits of our case. That local authority withdrew their CPO and had to start again, right from the beginning.

The trick, I might say, is to get the CPO right in the first place!

If you want a CPO made, you can do worse than to read ODPM Circular 06/2004; it contains a wealth of detail from the very people who have the power to destroy or confirm Compulsory Purchase Orders. Then you need an eye for detail in Getting the Order Right - and about twelve to twenty-four months' leeway to make the Order and get it confirmed. Once you have possession, use of a General Vesting Declaration is the easiest way if onward re-sales or sub-sales are needed, the compensation can be left as a separate issue which need not delay the project works.

Compensation on Compulsory Purchase is a very complex subject in itself. I have often argued points of compensation law with aggrieved land-owners and (less often) with acquiring authorities.  Ultimately, these disputes go the Lands Tribunal, but the cost (and the delay) will often persuade people to reach a compromise well before the Hearing. The compensation payable under the 2004 Act is generally a little above Open Market Value and this removes some of the pain from those whose land has to be acquired in the interests of the wider community.

I have promoted and defended several compulsory purchase orders for clients who have been either working hand-in-hand with their local authorities or – on other occasions – fighting  strongly against them.  I have recently been advising an Essex local authority on a CPO scheme in their town centre.