[2024] UKUT 00316 (LC)

The case of Castlefield Properties Limited v National Highways Ltd [2023] UKUT 217 (LC) concerned, in part, the assessment of compensation under section 7 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 for injurious affection to retained land caused by alterations to its access and delays in putting in place new legal rights of access.

Section 7 provides:

“In assessing the compensation to be paid by the acquiring authority under this Act regard shall be had not only to the value of the land to be purchased by the acquiring authority, but also to the damage, if any, to be sustained by the owner of the land by reason of the severing of the land purchased from the other land of the owner, or otherwise injuriously affecting that other land by the exercise of the powers conferred by this or the special Act.”

In Castlefield the sole access to the retained land was stopped up and a replacement access was to be provided as an easement across the land of a neighbouring owner, using the respondent’s powers of compulsory acquisition. In the event, a legal right of access was still not in place nine years after the date when part of the property was taken and the claimant sought compensation for injurious affection and disturbance losses resulting from that delay. Paragraph [18] of the decision is helpful in setting out the basis for injurious affection compensation as follows:

“18.

The assessment of this form of compensation is generally achieved by determining the value of the retained land before severance, i.e. on the valuation date but disregarding the effect of the acquiring authority’s scheme, and deducting from it the value of the retained land after severance, i.e. on the same date but taking into account the effect of the scheme and of the severance of the retained land from the land taken. The necessary assessment must be carried out as at the date of entry, in this case, 10 November 2014.”

At paragraph [21] it continued:

“... As a general rule, without an express contractual or statutory instruction to do so (and there is none in section 7) it would always be wrong to value land as if with knowledge of matters which were not known, and could not have been known, at the valuation date…”