Land

Compulsory acquired land - general obligation to offer land back to former owner or successors 'provided that it has not materially changed in character since acquisition'- applying only where character of all of land to be disposed of not materially changedR v Secretary of State for Defence, ex p.

Wilkins: QBD (Moses J): 19 June 2000

The Secretary of State decided to dispose of land which had been compulsorily acquired for an RAF airfield, but decided that he was not obliged to offer to sell it back to the former owners, because the land had materially changed in character since acquisition.He relied on r.9 of the non-statutory 'Crichel Down Rules' set out in the Guidelines Disposal of Surplus Government Land: Obligation to offer land back to Former Owners or their Successors of 30 October 1992, under which former owners were generally to be given a first opportunity to repurchase land previously in their ownership, 'provided that it has not been materially changed in character since acquisition,' or on rr.10 and 14(7)(ii) under which, where there had been a material change in character of part of the site, he could refuse to resell those parts whose character had not changed to their former owners because the disposal of individual parcels of the land would achieve a substantially lower price than the price which could be achieved if the site were sold as one parcel.

The former owners sought judicial review, contending that whether there had been a material change in the character of land should be considered in relation to each of the former owners' parcels of land and that the word 'it' in r.9 referred to the phrase 'land previously in their ownership.' Guy Roots QC and Philip Petchey (instructed by Norton Rose) for the former owners.

David Elvin QC (instructed by Treasury Solicitor) for the Secretary of State.Held, refusing the application, that 'land' in r.9, which was a general rule, referred to the land owned by all the former owners; that 'it' referred to all the land to be disposed of, and so the general rule applied only where all the compulsorily acquired land to be disposed of had not materially changed in character; and that, accordingly, the Secretary of State had not misconstrued r.9.