AC-2024-LON-001877 - [2025] EWHC 2132 (Admin)

There is an obvious air of unreality about the Claimant’s case on this ground. I have rehearsed the history of negotiations between the Second Defendant and the Claimant in considerable detail earlier in this judgment. A principal purpose of those negotiations had been to try to arrive at mutually acceptable terms upon which both parties could agree that the Second Defendant should be given vacant possession to carry out the refurbishment works required to deliver the Scheme, following which possession of the refurbished Premises would be returned to the Claimant. Those negotiations were founded on the objective of avoiding the need for the Second Defendant to purchase the Claimant’s leasehold interest in the Premises, whether by agreement or under compulsion.

In DL35, the inspector concluded that although the parties had not been able to reach agreement, that was not the result of any failure on the part of the Second Defendant to take reasonable steps in the negotiations. I have rejected the Claimant’s contentions under ground 2 that the inspector’s conclusions on that issue are legally flawed.

The inescapable fact was that on the evidence before the inspector, those negotiations had not resulted in terms on which both parties could agree. The principal source of disagreement was the uplift offer. The Claimant’s son had made it clear that the Claimant insisted on reinstatement of the uplift offer, since she required the “insurance policy” of the sum of £1m payable under the uplift offer to enable her to purchase a comparable property in the local area should the Scheme fail. The Second Defendant had made it clear that, following the loss of opportunity to secure GLA grant funding at the end of March 2023, they could not justify reinstating the uplift offer. To do so would be commit to paying the Claimant a sum of money which, on the advice of their valuers, would be very substantially in excess of the compensation that was likely to be payable to the Claimant under the land compensation acts in the event of compulsory purchase of her lease of the Premises. The uplift offer could no longer be said to represent value for money to the public purse.

In his expert report, Mr Rhead sought to support the Claimant’s argument that the use of compulsory purchase powers in this case was excessive –

“… the [Claimant’s] Family are prepared to enter into a licence subject to agreement being reached on the protections contained within the Draft Agreement in such circumstances where the Council decides not to proceed with the Scheme. Since March 2023, the Objectors have been advised by [Irwin Mitchell] and its specialist planning team. They are instructed to agree the terms of the Draft Agreement and an accompanying licence which would allow the Council to take possession of the Property”.

That was, in substance, no more than a statement that the Claimant and her family remained willing to continue to negotiate with the Second Defendant. Mr Rhead did not suggest that the Claimant was willing to drop her insistence on the reinstatement of the uplift offer. As the Claimant’s son had made clear in his evidence to the public inquiry, and as Mr Jones KC reminded the inspector in his closing submissions, it remained the Claimant’s position that reinstatement of the uplift offer was needed to provide her with financial security in the event that the Scheme did not proceed to completion.

On the evidence before the inspector, there was no realistic prospect that the parties would reach agreement on the terms of a licence to allow the Second Defendant to take vacant possession of the Premises for the purposes of carrying out the refurbishment works. As the inspector said in DL38, despite the Claimant’s offers, no alternative Scheme or agreement had been put forward which would meet the policy objectives and the comprehensive regeneration of the Order land which was essential to enable provision of much needed affordable housing. It was clear that the purpose for which the Second Defendant was proposing to acquire the land could not be achieved by means other than compulsory purchase of the Claimant’s leasehold interest in the Premises.

In the light of this analysis, I am unable to accept that the inspector failed properly to address the Claimant’s argument that the use of compulsory purchase powers to acquire her leasehold interest in the Premises was excessive. Nor is his reasoning inadequate to explain why he rejected that argument, in the light of the evidence before him. I can see some force in Mr Jones KC’s submission that the Claimant’s contentions about the history of mismanagement of JRP had little if anything to do with that issue. The inspector’s reasoning in the first sentence of DL38 would perhaps have been better placed earlier in his overall decision, where he addressed the issue of negotiations. Nevertheless, in the second sentence of DL38, he said that the historic matters of which the Claimant complained were not material to the issue at hand. As I understood it, that was Mr Jones KC’s submission. There is, in my judgment, no genuine as opposed to forensic doubt as to the inspector’s reasons for concluding that the use of compulsory purchase powers under section 226(1)(a) of the 1990 Act for the purpose of delivering the Scheme, was as a last resort and proportionate in this case.

Ground 3 is rejected.