Couple win Upper Tribunal appeal over whether their property was blighted by road building plans

Warwickshire County Council was wrong to deny that a couple’s property was blighted by long term road building plans, the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) has ruled.

In McEvoy & Anor v Warwickshire County Council (COMPENSATION - BLIGHT NOTICE) [2020] UKUT 276 (LC) Andrew and Joanne McEvoy brought the case over their Green Acres bungalow in Grendon.

They served a blight notice on Warwickshire in October 2019 under section 150 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 requiring the council to purchase their freehold interest.

In December 2019 the council served a counter-notice objecting to the blight notice on grounds (a), (c), (d) and (g) of section 151(4) and also under section 159(1) of the 1990 Act. Mr and Mrs McEvoy then took the case to the tribunal.

They said Green Acres was blighted land because it was identified in the draft North Warwickshire Local Plan as part of a new dual carriageway by-pass for the A5 road between Dordon and Grendon

Correspondence from Highways England noted access and infrastructure “are expected to have significant implications for the Greenacres site. There is also potential future use of compulsory purchase order powers.”

Warwickshire argued the McEvoys had failed to demonstrate that their land fell within any of the Act’s provisions over blight.

It said all the plans concerned were conceptual and the extent and position of the road scheme were subject to change even if the funds became available to build it.

Tribunal member AJ Trott concluded: “The by-pass is consistently shown [on planning documents] as being aligned through the claimants’ land.”

The ruling said: “In my judgment the whole or part of the claimants’ property is comprised in blighted land under paragraph 1A of Schedule 13 to the 1990 Act and therefore the council’s objection under section 151(4)(a) is not well founded and fails.”

Mark Smulian