National Pig Progeny Testing Board v Greenall
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS,LORD JUSTICE HARMAN,LORD JUSTICE DONOVAN |
| Judgment Date | 19 October 1960 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1960] EWCA Civ J1019-2 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Date | 19 October 1960 |
[1960] EWCA Civ J1019-2
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
The Master of the Rolls
(Lord Evershed)
Lord Justice Harman and
Lord Justice Donovan
MR ANTHONY CRIPPS, Q. C. and MR RAYMOND PHILLIPS (instructed by the Solicitor of Inland Revenue) appeared as Counsel for the Appellant.
MR L. A. BLUNDELL, Q. C. and Mr J. T. PLUME (instructed by Messrs Ellis & Pairbairn) appeared as Counsel for the Respondents.
: The Judgment which Lord Justice Harman is about to deliver is the Judgment of the Court.
The Respondents, the National Pig Progeny Testing Board, is a company limited by guarantee and privileged to dispence with the word "limited" by reason of the fact that it is forbidden to pay a dividend. It carries on a business of education, research and experiment intended to improve the production of pigs "and in particular to carry on the progeny testing of pigs at progeny testing stations in Groat Britain". Its headquarters are at Letchworth and it has four or five litter testing stations, including that with which this appeal is concerned which is at Hambleton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Each of the Board's litter testing stations carries out the same programme carefully laid down in a pamphlet which was before us. Four hundred young pigs are acquired and reared until they reach a certain weight under strictly controlled conditions on food carefully regulated and measured and exactly similar to those used at the other testing stations. For this purpose a building is needed of which the cost is apparently over £100,000. The tests have been carried out hitherto wholly within doors and only a very small area of land surrounding the buildings is required. In the case of the other testing stations of the Board this land has merely been treated as what is called "amenity land", but the Hambleton site is different because here the Board acquired the property of a kindred company which extended to over nine acres. The result is that besides the buildings there is an area of some 6.8 acres which, when the Board took over the property in 1957. was described as "a wilderness of weeds covered with builder's rubble".
During the winter of 1957 this area was twice ploughed and harrowed, but in March 1958, when the valuation officer made his rating proposals, its further use was undecided and what is called "a working party" had been appointed to consider what use should be made of it. The alternative proposals were apparently either to grow corn with the object of using the straw for bedding in the buildings and selling off the grain, or by laying the area down to grass and conducting upon it or some part of it additional tests upon pigs kept out of doors instead of under cover. So far as we have been able to understand, no conclusion had been reached on this subject two years later, so the working party, like the mills of God, is grinding slowly.
The Valuation Officer's proposal was to rate both buildings and land at a gross value of some £3,000 and a rateable value of £.2.198, That proposal was accepted by the Local Valuation Court in September 1958? but an appeal to the Lands Tribunal heard in January 1960 was successful and the land and buildings were held entitled to be de-rated as an agricultural hereditament. The Valuation Officer appeals to this Court.
The answer depends upon the true construction of Section 2(2) of the Rating and Valuation (Apportionment) Act 1928. Under Section 67 of the Local Government Act 1929 agricultural land or agricultural buildings are entitled to exemption from rates. To identify these one must turn to the 1928 Act, which is in these terms: Section 2(2): "in this Act the following expressions have the meanings hereby respectively assigned to them: 'Agricultural land' means any land used as arable meadow or pasture ground only, land used for a plantation or a wood", and so forth, "'Agricultural buildings' means buildings (other than dwelling houses) occupied together with agricultural land or being or forming part of a market garden, and in either case used solely in connection with agricultural operations there on".
It seems to us clear that on this section agricultural land is distinct from agricultural buildings though either is an agricultural hereditament. Tho respondent in order to succeed must therefore show that his land is agricultural land and that his buildings are agricultural buildings, The only words appropriate to the former are "land used as arable meadow or pasture ground only". We agree with the President of the Tribunal that this land passes this test, A decision had been made to put it to an agricultural use. It has been ploughed and harrowed, operations essential to that end, and the fact that at the moment of the proposal in March 1958 the owners had not decided to which agricultural use it should be put does not seem to us fatal to their submission.
That the buildings should rank as agricultural buildings they must pass two tests: first, they must be "occupied together with agricultural land" and, second, must be "used solely in connection with agricultural operations there on", It is conceded that these buildings are occupied together with the land which we have held to be agricultural land. They there fore pass the first test. The use to which the buildings are put is clear. It is the raising of pigs. True these are not raised in the normal commercial way and the object is not to make a profit by the sale of the car cases but to collect statistical information for the help of farmers, Nevertheless it seems to us clear that this is an agricultural operation. The crucial point is whether this use is connected solely with agricultural operations on the land. In our judgment the respondent's case breaks down at this point. The use of the buildings in March 1958 appears to us to have had no connection at all with any agricultural operations on the land. Those operations had not got; beyond the stage of plugging and it was quite uncertain what the future night bring. It was "argued that if it was decided to grow corn the straw produced would provide the necessary connection, while if grass were laid down the future experiments in open air pig rearing would do the like. This may be left to be argued when it happens. The relevant date was the date of the proposal, namely, March 1958, and at that time and when the Case was stated in January 1960 the question was still undecided. The intention found to exist to use the land for one of these purposes is not the same thing as its user for them or one of them. We cannot agree that the use of the buildings bad at the relevant time any connection with the use of the land. The appeal therefore succeeds.
As to the cases cited to us, the ( Milk Marketing Board case 1952, 2 King's Bench, 817) was quite a "different one. The land there was at the relevant date being used for purposes very much connected with the use of the buildings. Both in that case and the later case of ( Perrins v. Draper 1953. 1 Weekly Law Reports, 1178) the Court of Appeal held that the word "thereon" at the end of the section meant "on the land" and not as Mr Blundoll would have us believe "on the holding". In our judgment we were bound to follow...
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