Demolition in UK Law

The question here is whether reduction in value due to an impending demolition order comes within that area of rating where realities are acknowledged or within that where necessarily fiction prevails over fact. It is near the border-line which separates those areas. One has a natural inclination to prefer reality to fiction if and where this is compatible with the basis of rating, with the statute, and with the cases.

Rating seeks a standard by which every hereditament in this country can be measured in relation to every other hereditament. So one must assume a hypothetical letting (which in many cases would never in fact occur) in order to do the best one can to form some estimate of what value should be attributed to a hereditament on the universal standard, namely a letting "from year to year".

The principle was mainly devised to meet, and it does deal with, an obvious type of case where the character or condition of the property either has undergone a change or is about to do so: thus, a house in course of construction cannot be rated: nor can a building be rated by reference to changes which might be made in it either as to its structure or its use.

The former concerned the acquisition of land, its reclamation improvement or refurbishment, for a purpose namely: redevelopment for residential or mixed use. The latter provides for the acquisition of buildings and their demolition, conversion, or improvement. Buildings are described as “intended for residential or mixed use”.

But in this case I am unable, consonant with the essential principles of fairness in a dispute, to uphold this compulsory purchase order. All cases in which principles of natural justice are invoked must depend on the particular circumstances of the cases. I can only say that in my opinion, in the circumstances I have outline, Fairmount has not had—in a phrase whose derivation neither I nor your Lordships could trace—a fair crack of the whip.

Section 52 (1) empowers a local planning authority to make agreements to achieve ends which it could not achieve without the consent of an applicant for planning permission. It does not empower a local planning authority to grant planning permission otherwise than as provided by sections 26 to 29 of the Act.

Under this Section it seems to me that the Court can interferewith the Minister's decision if he has acted on no evidence; or if he has come to a conclusion to which on the evidence he could not reasonably come; or if he has given a wrong interpretation to the words of the Statute; or if he has taken into consideration matters which he ought not to have taken into account, or vice versa; or has otherwise gone wrong in law.