Purchase Notices and Blight Notices

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Chapter 11

Purchase Notices and Blight Notices

PURCHASE NOTICES

11.1 Where: (a) planning permission has been refused or granted subject to conditions; (b) it has been revoked or modified by the imposition of conditions;¹

or (c) a discontinuance order has been made,²the owner may serve³a purchase notice on the relevant authority if, in cases (a) and (b):

(a) the land has become incapable of reasonably beneficial use in its existing state; and

(b) in a case where planning permission was granted subject to conditions or was modified by the imposition of conditions, the land cannot be rendered capable of reasonably beneficial use by the carrying out of the permitted development in accordance with those conditions; and

(c) in any case, the land cannot be rendered capable of reasonably beneficial use by the carrying out of any other development for which planning permission has been granted or for which the local planning authority (LPA) or the Secretary of State has undertaken to grant permission;⁴

or if, in the case of (c), as a result of the making of a discontinuance order, the following conditions are met:

(d) that by reason of the order the land is incapable of reasonably beneficial use in its existing state; and

¹TCPA 1990, s 97.

²TCPA 1990, s 102 or Sch 9, para 1 (discontinuance of mineral working).

³Within 12 months of the decision of the LPA or the Secretary of State (Town and Country

Planning General Regulations 1992 (SI 1992/1492), reg 12), although these Regulations confer power on the Secretary of State to extend that period where service is delayed for good reasons.

⁴TCPA 1990, s 137(1)–(3).

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(e) that it cannot be rendered capable of reasonably beneficial use by the carrying out of any other development for which planning permission has been granted, whether by that order or otherwise.

11.2 The notice requires the authority to purchase the land from the owner and to be paid compensation as if the land was being compulsorily purchased from him. Once a notice has been served, the authority⁵is required to serve a response notice within three months. The authority either accepts the purchase notice and buys the land, or it may reject it, in which case it must refer the notice to the Secretary of State who may, if he is not satisfied that the land is incapable of reasonably beneficial use, refuse to confirm it or, if he is so satisfied, then he may confirm it (in whole or part – in which event, it confirms the normal compulsory acquisition procedure) or grant planning permission, the refusal of which gave rise to the notice, or he may direct that planning permission for some other development may be granted if applied for.⁶

REASONABLY BENEFICIAL USE

11.3 This expression is not expressly defined in the TCPA 1990, but it is provided that in determining whether land is incapable of reasonably beneficial use, no account shall be taken of any prospective use involving new development other than development within paragraph 1 or 2 of Schedule 3, or where the purchase notice follows a refusal or conditional grant of planning permission if it would contravene the condition set out in Schedule 10.⁷

11.4 Cases under this head turn on their own particular facts, but the test is a rigorous one. The true test, however, is not whether the land is less valuable to the owner than if developed in accordance with the owner’s wishes, but whether the existing use is reasonably beneficial to the owner or a prospective owner in all the relevant circumstances of the particular site. The decision of the Secretary of State to confirm or not to confirm a purchase notice may be challenged by any person aggrieved by his decision.⁸This will be on conventional public law grounds for questioning decisions, such as where the decision was wrong in law

⁵Which can be a district council, London borough, metropolitan or shire district council, including a unitary council, Welsh county or county borough or National Park authority. As is indicated by TCPA 1990, s 137A, only in limited circumstances may a purchase notice be served in relation to Crown land.

⁶See TCPA 1990, ss 139–143.

⁷TCPA 1990, s 138(1), although regard may be had to any planning permission for other development which had been granted or which the LPA had undertaken to grant (Gavaghan v Secretary of State for the Environment [1989] 1 PLR 88).

⁸Under TCPA 1990, s 288.

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or was Wednesbury unreasonable or otherwise resulted from the failure of the Secretary of State to have regard to a relevant and material consideration. In other words, the assessment of whether there was ‘reasonably beneficial use’ is a matter for the judgment of the decision-maker such that a court would...