The Country Land and Business Association – the CLA – has succeeded in persuading the House of Lords Select Committee on the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill to recommend significant changes to the Bill.
Most importantly perhaps, the Select Committee recommended the omission of the power to make compulsory purchase orders for the regeneration and development of land in clause 48. The CLA submitted that the power was unjustified and undesirable. The Select Committee recognised the case that had been made by the CLA (para 388).
lso, as a result of submissions made by the CLA (para 417), the Select Committee made three recommendations to deal with the combined effect of the permanent acquisition of land that is required only temporarily and the Secretary of State’s policy applying an amended version of the Crichel Down Rules. It concluded (para 421):
“We strongly urge the Secretary of State not to add further exceptions to what is already quite a long list of cases (in paragraph 15 of the annex to the 2015 Guidance) in which the original owner will not be given first refusal to reacquire the land at its then market value. Apart from other more principled reasons, which we need not repeat, it would be odd if one Department of State had its own version of the rules.”
The report is available at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldhs2/83/83.pdf.
Richard Honey represented the CLA before the House of Lords Select Committee, instructed by Ian McCulloch of Bircham Dyson Bell.