Greater London Council v Holmes
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE OLIVER,LORD JUSTICE RALPH GIBSON,MR. JUSTICE ANTHONY LINCOLN |
| Judgment Date | 28 November 1985 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1985] EWCA Civ J1128-4 |
| Date | 28 November 1985 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Docket Number | 85/0776 |
[1985] EWCA Civ J1128-4
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
(Appeal Court)
(Civil Division)
(On appeal from the High Court of Justice Queen's Bench Division)
Royal Courts of Justice.
Lord Justice Oliver
Lord Justice Ralph Gibson
and
Mr. Justice Anthony Lincoln
85/0776
No. 1983 G 440
MR. D. R. WATKINSON (instructed by May Maughan, London E.1.) appeared on behalf of the Appellant/Defendant.
MR. G. ANTHONY (instructed by R. A. Lanham Esq., Solicitor for the Greater London Council) appeared on behalf of the Respondent/Plaintiff.
This is an appeal from an Order of His Honour Judge Sir William Stabb Q.C. made on the 17th February, 1984 by which he answered in favour of the respondent, the Greater London Council, certain questions raised by an Originating Summons as to the entitlement of the appellant to a "home-loss" payment under the provisions of the Land Compensation Act, 1973.
The summons, the evidence in support of which consisted simply of an agreed statement of facts with some supporting documents, raised two questions, the first of which was expressed in very general terms, that is to say, whether the appellant was entitled to a payment as a person displaced from his home in consequence of the carrying out of redevelopment on the site on which his home was situate. The second question was whether displacement consequential on a decision of the respondent to clear the land and sell with vacant possession constituted displacement from a dwelling on land "in consequence of the carrying out of development on the land".
As regards the first question it is agreed that the real issue raised is a much narrower one, namely that of the purpose for which the land was held by the respondent at the time when the appellant was displaced.
The section of the Land Compensation Act, 1973 with which this appeal is concerned is section 29(1)(c).
It appears in Part III of the Act, which is headed "Provisions for Benefit of Persons displaced from land. Home loss payments", and is in the following terms: "29. (1) Where a person is displaced from a dwelling on any land in consequence of (a) the compulsory acquisition of an interest in the dwelling; (b) the making, passing or acceptance of a housing order, resolution or undertaking in respect of the dwelling; (c) where the land has been previously acquired by an authority possessing compulsory purchase powers or appropriated by a local authority and is for the time being held by the authority for the purposes for which it was acquired or appropriated, the carrying out of redevelopment on the land, he shall, subject to the provisions of this section and section 32 below, be entitled to receive a payment (hereafter referred to as a 'home-loss payment') from the acquiring authority, the authority who made the order, passed the resolution or accepted the undertaking or the authority carrying out the redevelopment, as the case may be."
The remaining subsections of the section deal with the qualifications for entitlement and it is unnecessary to refer to them because it is common ground that, subject to the two questions raised on the appeal, the appellant was otherwise qualified to receive a payment.
The instance case is not one where the land concerned had been "appropriated" by the local authority. It was land which was compulsorily acquired and it is agreed that, subject to the question of whether the displacement was in consequence of redevelopment by the respondent, the only question which requires to be answered is whether at the time of his displacement the land so acquired was, on the true construction of the section, being held by the respondent for the purposes for which it was acquired.
The relevant facts as they appear from the agreed statement are as follows: The appellant became the tenant of a mobile home at 37 Clark Street, London E.l (in the Borough of Tower Hamlets) in April 1967 and until displaced in April 1980 occupied that site as his only home. Clark Street runs parallel to Ashfield Street and the block of land between the two (which included No. 37) was known as "the Ashfield Street site". It had been compulsorily acquired in 1963 and we have been given to understand (though this does not appear in the agreed Statement) that it was acquired under powers conferred by the Housing Act, 1957.
It may be convenient to refer to the relevant provisions of that Act at this stage since they form the basis of one of Mr. Watkinson's submissions on behalf of the appellant
Section 96(a) of the Act provides that "a local authority shall have power under this part of the Act (a) to acquire any land, including any houses or buildings thereon, as a site for the erection of houses…"
Section 97 authorises the acquisition either by agreement or by compulsory purchase and provides that with the consent of the Minister, land may be acquired for the statutory purposes even if not immediately required for these purposes if it appears to the Minister that it is likely to be required for those purposes within 10 years from the date on which he confirms the compulsory purchase order.
Section 96(e) authorises acquisition for the purposes of the sale or lease of the land under powers conferred by paragraph (a) of subsection (1) or by subsection (2) of section 105 of the Act—a paragraph which provides that where land has been acquired for the purposes of the Act it may, with Ministerial consent, be sold or leased for the purpose and subject to conditions as to the erection of numbers and types of houses specified by the local authority. Section 105(1)(b) also contains a general power, with the consent of the Minister, to sell the land.
Returning to the agreed facts, it appears that the immediate provision of housing was satisifed, at any rate so far as the appellant was concerned, by the provision of a mobile home, but paragraph 5 of the agreed statement indicates what, so it is said, the respondents' ultimate intention was.
Paragraph 5 of the Statement reads as follows: "At the time of acquisition of the site, it was the intention of the plaintiffs to clear the site and to build housing thereon as is shown by the Outline Planning Brief dated 4th April, 1979, a copy of which is appended hereto at Appendix 2". How the intention of the respondent in 1963 is manifested by a document brought into being some 16 years later is not entirely clear, but we have to accept the agreed statement at its face value and it is not in dispute that the intention with which the land was acquired was the clearance of the site and the provision of local authority housing. It is unnecessary to refer in any detail to the Housing brief, but the following paragraphs may be material.
Para 1.4 is headed "Site Availability" and reads: "The site can be made available when required subject to the usual arrangements for programming the rehousing and clearance".
Paragraph 2.1 describes the type of housing proposed, that is, a mixture of flats and houses. Section 3.2 is headed "Statutory Position" and reads: "These sites are vested in this Council and are zoned in the Initial Development Plan for public open space. As the IDP is still in the statutory document for the area, the proposed housing development will conflict with the provisions of the plan and will have to be advertised".
Part 4 of the brief indicates a programme providing for the Scheme and Estimate to be produced by April, 1980. By July 1979, however, the picture had changed and on the 16th July, 1979 the respondents' Housing Development Committee ordered all work on the project to be stopped. A report on the 31st August, 1979 listed a number of options for the development of the land, one of which was sale on the open market for housing use. On the 11th February, 1980 the Housing Policy Committee resolved that the Ashfield Street Scheme be not proceeded with and that the Central Area Planning Committee be informed that the sites "are surplus to, or are not required for the purposes of the Council's own housing programme". It recommended that the site be disposed of by "open market sale for housing for sale."
That was confirmed by the Central Area Planning Committee on the 13th February, 1980. Thereafter the appellant was visited by a Housing Welfare Officer and sent a leaflet explaining his possible entitlement to home loss and disturbance payments but...
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