Catherine Hibbert, specialist compulsory purchase solicitor at Holmes & Hills was approached by a client and their professional advisor following the rejection of blight notice relating to their family home which was to be impacted by a road improvement scheme.
The owner of a substantial residential property was to be impacted by a scheme being pursued by the County Council as local highway authority. The scheme sought to replace a single carriageway bridge with a dual carriageway bridge so as improve traffic flow and increase local road network capacity.
The dualling of the bridge meant the highways authority sought to compulsory purchase part of the client’s garden, this required to deliver the scheme. The scheme meant that not only would the client lose part of their land, but their home would subsequently be closer to a much larger and busier road. The client was needing to sell their home in order to downsize, but they were unable to due to the scheme being public knowledge and would-be purchasers being put-off purchasing the property at anything near what the property was worth were the scheme not proposed.
Prior to the involvement of Holmes & Hills’ specialist Compulsory Purchase and Development Consent Division, the clients’ land agent had submitted a blight notice for the client. Had this been successful, the highways authority would have purchased the whole of the property, freeing the client from having to live next to the larger, busier road and allowing the client to extract their equity with a view to purchasing a new home. The highway authority objected to the blight notice on grounds that the required piece of garden could be compulsorily purchased without material detriment to the house and/or without serious impact upon the amenity or convenience of the house.
The client was distressed at the prospect of months of heavy construction work taking place in close proximity to their home, the loss of part of their garden, and, moving forward, living even closer to a road, and one that was to be larger and busier.
At the point Holmes & Hills Solicitors was approached for advice and representation, negotiations with the highways authority had stalled completely.
Holmes & Hills’ specialist Compulsory Purchase and Development Consent Division advised the client that the best course of action was to make an application to the Tribunal with a view to having the Tribunal decide the highways authority was wrong to reject the blight notice, paving the way for a sale of the property, in its entirety, to the highways authority.
Catherine drafted the application to the Tribunal, giving detailed consideration to ‘material detriment’, ‘amenity or convenience’ and ‘house’. Ultimately, Catherine argued in the strongest possible legal terms as to why the local highways authority was wrong to reject the blight notice.
A short time following the Tribunal application being submitted, communications with the highways authority re-opened and the client’s team was able to successfully negotiate for the highways authority to purchase the entirety of the client’s property for a mutually agreeable price.
Submitting the strong Tribunal application and having this push the highways authority back into negotiations was an excellent result for the client, enabling them to downsize as they required, whilst also preventing them from suffering loss due to impact on the property value from the scheme. The client was also able to avoid the experience of living so close to a construction site and subsequently, a larger and busier road.
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