[2025] UKUT 00007 (LC)

The Tribunal is asked to determine a preliminary issue common to five separate references concerning the entitlement to compensation of the former owners of four neighbouring plots of land at Eastside in Birmingham. Each of the sites was acquired by the Secretary of State for Transport in 2018 for the construction of the new Curzon Street terminus for the HS2 railway.

The Eastside Quarter, as it is known, is close to the centre of Birmingham and, had the sites not been acquired, it is likely that they would have been redeveloped for a variety of uses, including commercial, cultural, residential and educational uses.

To support their claims for compensation each of the owners applied to the local planning authority, Birmingham City Council (‘the City Council’) for a certificate of appropriate alternative development under section 17 of the Land Compensation Act 1961. The purpose of a certificate (or ‘CAAD’) is to determine what planning permissions, if any, could reasonably have been expected to have been obtained for a site if it had not been compulsorily acquired. The availability of such permissions is significant because in determining the compensation the owner is entitled to receive it must be assumed that planning permission for the certified development was available at the valuation date or would have been available at a future date identified in the certificate (section 14(3), 1961 Act).

Each application was for a separate development on only one of the four adjacent sites but, in conjunction with other uses, each application identified purpose built student accommodation (‘PBSA’) as an appropriate alternative form of development. As we will explain, Birmingham has a large student population and Eastside is very close to several of its universities; we also anticipate that we will receive evidence in due course that PBSA is a particularly valuable form of development.

As a result of the applications CAADs including an allowance for PBSA were granted by the City Council to Birmingham City University (‘BCU’), Curzon Park Ltd (‘Curzon Park’) and Eastside Partnership Nominee Company Ltd and PMB General Partner Ltd (‘Eastside’). The Secretary of State has appealed to the Tribunal against those CAADs.

An application by Quintain City Park Gate Ltd (‘Quintain’) and an earlier application by Eastside for CAADs including PBSA were not determined by the City Council within the permitted time and are the subject of appeals against non-determination by the original applicants with the Secretary of State as respondent.

Some sense of the scale of the alternative development which the former owners say would reasonably have been expected on their respective sites can be gained from the certificates granted by the City Council. Quintain’s certificate is for development of up to 99,490 sqm including residential, office, hotel and retail uses, together with PBSA providing 1,940 bed spaces. Curzon Park’s certificate is for an even larger scheme comprising buildings of up to 41 storeys to a maximum of 181,260 sqm, including up to 37,013 sqm of PBSA providing 1,716 bed spaces.

In each appeal the Secretary of State’s position is that at the relevant valuation date the need for student accommodation in the centre of Birmingham was fully satisfied by the existing supply of PBSA and by other forms of accommodation available to students and that a reasonable planning authority would not have granted planning permission for further PBSA at any of the sites. The site owners dispute that proposition and maintain that there was a substantial unmet need for PBSA at each valuation date which could have been satisfied by development at Eastside had their land not been acquired for HS2.

The need for further PBSA is therefore an issue common to each of the CAAD appeals. The parties agreed the terms of a preliminary issue which they invited the Tribunal to determine before it considers the full terms of the appropriate certificate for each site and the amount of compensation payable.

The parties were represented at the hearing by the counsel and solicitors named above. Expert evidence was given by Mr Martin Hadland MRICS for the Secretary of State, by Mr David Feeney for Quintain, BCU and Eastside, and by Mr Martin Taylor MRTPI for Curzon Park. We are grateful for the assistance of all who participated.