UK Construction and Law

Assurances offered four years after the valuation date do not cut a 10.5m pound land take bill

By Staff Writer  |  6 September 2026

Twenty seven acres near Stoke Mandeville carried prospects for a 162 unit retirement scheme until 2.7 acres were taken for a bypass built for HS2. The Lands Chamber has set compensation at 10,531,244 pounds and refused to let promises made on the eve of the hearing cut it.

The Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) released its decision in Landlink (Stoke Mandeville) Ltd v The Secretary of State for Transport [2026] UKUT 319 (LC) on 4 September 2026. The decision is dated 26 August 2026, after a hearing over seven days in July.

Until 18 May 2022 the claimant owned 27 acres of undeveloped land about half a mile south of the village. Part was allocated in the local plan for housing for older people, and it is agreed that permission would have been available for an integrated retirement community of 162 units fronting Risborough Road. On that date the Secretary of State acquired 2.7 acres by general vesting declaration under the High Speed Rail (London to West Midlands) Act 2017, to divert the road and form a new Stoke Mandeville bypass. Further land was taken temporarily for the works.

Twelve point eight against six

The claim runs under section 5 of the Land Compensation Act 1961 for the land taken and section 7 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 for injurious affection to the land retained. Both sides agreed a valuation date of 18 May 2022 and a certificate of appropriate alternative development for the 162 unit scheme. At the close of the evidence the claimant put its claim at a little under 12.8m pounds and the Secretary of State at a little over 6m pounds.

The promises that arrived too late

The one contested legal issue was what to do with assurances the Secretary of State gave shortly before and during the hearing: an unconditional easement giving the retained land access from the new bypass, and an undertaking not to seek a ransom value on any sale of the unadopted parts of the land strip. Their purpose was to cut the compensation by removing disadvantages that had depressed the value of the retained land.

Section 5A(2) of the 1961 Act closes the point for the land taken: no adjustment is to be made to the valuation in respect of anything which happens after the relevant valuation date. Section 7 of the 1965 Act says nothing about a date, and the tribunal accepted in principle that later events can reduce the damage sustained, because the principle of equivalence requires the claimant to be neither over nor under compensated.

We can see no reason to judge the effect of the assurance as if it had been given more than four years earlier than it was and we do not see how the damage sustained by the exercise of the Secretary of State's statutory powers can be assessed having regard to some of the circumstances existing at the date of assessment but ignoring others.

Martin Rodger KC, Deputy Chamber President of the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber)

Two practical points defeated the argument. The assurances arrived long after pleadings and evidence had closed, neither valuer had been asked to price them, and what the experts said about them was given off the cuff. And they were not the only change since May 2022: the tribunal heard that the market for retirement housing on this model had all but collapsed, and that a draft local plan proposed removing the retained land's allocation. The Secretary of State wanted credit for the favourable change and nothing for the unfavourable ones.

The fees, and a total that does not add up

Professional fees of 471,244 pounds plus VAT were incurred before the reference and the tribunal allowed every penny, including 116,734 pounds plus VAT paid to a company that managed the claim. Proposed cuts of 40 per cent to the architects' fees and 33 per cent to the solicitors' fees were rejected because nothing was put to the claimant's witness on them.

The decision awards 9,960,000 pounds for the land taken and injurious affection, 564,971 pounds of pre-reference fees, 75,000 pounds of basic loss and 25,000 pounds of occupier's loss, and states a total of 10,531,244 pounds. Those four figures come to 10,624,971 pounds. The stated total is the sum produced by the net fees figure of 471,244 pounds given earlier in the decision rather than the VAT inclusive figure printed in the table, a difference of 93,727 pounds. Interest at the statutory rate is left to the parties to agree.

For anyone advising a landowner in the path of a scheme, the working point is pleading. An acquiring authority that wants credit for what it has done since the valuation date must plead it and prove it, and the moment for that is not the skeleton argument.