[2024] UKUT 351 (LC)

Should advertising rights at Liverpool Street Station and Victoria Station in London be treated for rating purposes as part of a single hereditament comprising the national railway network in the occupation of the respondent, Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd, or should they each be treated as separate hereditaments in the occupation of the company entitled to exercise the rights?

That is the question raised in this appeal against two decisions of the Valuation Tribunal for England (VTE) published on 1 June 2023. The VTE decided that the advertising rights were not separate hereditaments and were rateable in the central valuation list as part of Network Rail’s undertaking. It directed that separate entries made by the Valuation Officer in the local rating lists for the City of London and for Westminster should be deleted. The Valuation Officer now appeals against those decisions.

The assessments entered in the local lists by the Valuation Officer at the request of the billing authorities were, first, in respect of the right to display advertisements on a static, two-sided, back lit box suspended above the central concourse at Victoria Station and measuring approximately 6.0m by 1.6m with a rateable value of £83,000, and secondly, in respect of a digital “transvision” installation attached to the upper level pedestrian walkway over the Broadgate Circus exit from Liverpool Street Station which measures about 4.0m by 2.3m and has a rateable value of £77,500. The Victoria site was wrongly described in the list as a digital advertising right but it is agreed that description was inaccurate.

The sites were made available by Network Rail to J.C. Decaux UK Ltd under the terms of a Rail Advertising Concession Agreement entered into between them on 10 December 2010 which remained operative at the material day, 1 April 2017. We will refer to that 2010 Agreement in more detail later but its principal operative provision, clause 3.1, was a grant by Network Rail to J.C. Decaux, subject to the provisions of the agreement, of “the exclusive right to maintain, manage, promote and exploit the sale of Advertising Space” at 18 major railway stations, including Victoria and Liverpool Street. “Advertising Space” was defined by reference to a list of specific physical structures (more than 400 in number) in 18 mainline railway stations managed by Network Rail; the list could be amended from time to time under various provisions of the Agreement.

The VTE’s decisions were made following proposals made by Network Rail in its capacity as an interested person within the meaning of regulation 4(2)(a), Non-Domestic Rating (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2009. The parties to the appeal are therefore the Valuation Officer and Network Rail; the ratepayer, J.C. Decaux, is aware of but has not participated in the appeals.