CPA Newletter - November 2018

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CPA Newsletter - November 2018

A welcome from the new chairman, Jonathan Stott.

It was an honour to accept the role of Chair at last month’s AGM, and I’m pleased to welcome you to my first newsletter in the role.

As promised at the AGM, we’ll be continuing to issue newsletters on a regular basis, as part of our efforts to continually improve communication with members and ensure there are opportunities for all members to be involved in CPA matters and events, and to have their voice heard.
One area where members can get involved in CPA work is through Working Groups, details of which are set out below. Working Groups have been operating now for four years, but we’ve recently reviewed their focus to ensure we have Groups dealing with all of the key issues that face the CPA over the next 12-24 months.

As well as communicating regularly through the newsletter, myself and various other Board members can also regularly be found in the Twittershpere. Sad, I know, but if you so wish I can be followed on my handle @MisterCPO!

My objectives for the year - As I set out at our well-attended AGM in Birmingham are as follows:

1. Continue to effectively represent the views of our membership:
  • Ensure the Board reflects the diverse make-up of the membership;
  • Increase the diversity of the Working Groups to improve their effectiveness.
2. Improve communication with members:
  • Continue to issue quarterly newsletters and upload all consultation responses to the website;
  • Increase the number and frequency of regional events;
  • Increase use of social media;
  • Work more closely with the CPA Future to grow awareness of CP-related careers and provide more value to student members.
3. Develop our position as the voice of best practise on matters relating to compulsory purchase and land assembly:
  • Continue to work closely with Government in developing best practice;
  • Work more closely with other professional bodies incl RICS, RTPI, NIPA, PEBA, CAAV etc;
  • Become the ‘go-to’ voice in industry and national press, working with our PR agency Advent Communications.
I’ll always be open to constructive feedback about how you think we’re doing in relation to these objectives – feel free to contact me at jonathan.stott@gateleyhamer.com

Land Compensation Claims Protocol
This has now adopted by the CPA
How have we got here
As members will know, we undertook a 10 week consultation on a draft Land Compensation Claims Protocol between May and July this year. Following the consultation we made some minor amendments to the Protocol and asked members in September whether they wanted the CPA to adopt it. We had overwhelming support (over 94% of the vote) for the CPA to adopt the Protocol.

This protocol applies to any claim for compensation made by a claimant to a compensating authority that would, in the absence of agreement between the parties, involve a reference to the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) under Part 5 of the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) Procedure Rules 2010 (as amended) (“Rules”).

To view the Protocol, click here

What does this mean?
  • The CPA has now adopted the Land Compensation Claims Protocol.
  • The Protocol is a statement of best practice in relation to land compensation claims for the guidance of members and non-members.
  • The CPA encourages members to meet the standards of the Protocol and to encourage others to do so as well.
  • The intention is that the Protocol becomes a best practice standard against which the conduct of the parties (whether members or not) in land compensation claim cases can be measured by professionals, clients and ultimately the Upper Tribunal.
  • The Protocol will be reviewed by the CPA Board on an ongoing basis in consultation with stakeholders. Please feel free to send your experience of using the Protocol through to Board members so these can be taken into account on review.
  • The Board will consult with the CPA membership on any material changes to the Protocol to ensure the endorsement of members remains valid.
  • The CPA will share the results with other interested stakeholders and, where applicable, ask these bodies to convey the existence of the Protocol to their members.
Barry Denyer-Green Chairs the Protocol Working Group, which will be meeting with major acquiring authorities and other stakeholders to ensure the Protocol is well understood and widely followed.

Election Results
As a result of the election, I’m delighted to welcome 3 new members to the board, Richard Asher, David Holland, and Abigail Walters. I’m looking forward to working with you all.

I also wish to place on record my thanks to departing Board members Colin Cottage, Matthew Collings and Sue Rixon, all of whom have given fantastic service to the Association during recent years, and I look forward to continuing to work with them in other roles.

As Chair I consider it important that our Board represents the composition of our membership.
As such, I believe it is important all of the primary professions involved in the compulsory purchase profession are represented on the Board. I also believe it is important that we have representatives on the Board from different areas of the country, who are familiar with the issues that are affecting their regions, and that we have representatives with experience of acting for or working for acquiring authorities, and representatives with experience of advising affected parties, including commercial, residential and agricultural claimants.
With that in mind and taking account of the composition of the elected Board, I am delighted to confirm that the following members have agreed to be co-opted on to the Board for one year.

  • Dan Knowles – Dan has significant experience of representing residents affected by compulsory purchase, both in London and elsewhere. Post Aylesbury and in an environment where human rights implications of CPO are increasingly in the spotlight, I believe Dan’s experience will be very beneficial in ensuring the Board is able to convey the challenges that face residents who, as a claimant group, otherwise have a comparatively quieter voice compared with commercial claimants.
  • John Sayer – John was instrumental in developing the Outreach communications working group, and is our primary point of contact with our recently appointed PR agency, Advent Communications. I consider it important that John maintains that relationship and remains on the Board to ensure our use of external communications is as effective as possible.
  • Greg Dickson – Greg was on the Board last year and provided an excellent contribution. I believe it is beneficial for our Board to include a planning professional, and with Greg’s connections to the RTPI and the fact that he is involved in organising CPA events in the north-west region, he is an excellent candidate to be co-opted for this year.
  • Gary Soloman - Gary has been involved in governance and a member of the Board for a number of years. With the need to embrace legislative reform and change in Wales, and to engage with the Welsh Government, the board have agreed to create a Welsh Steering group. With Gary’s extensive work in Wales, as well as governance and board experience, he is the obvious person to lead this group, and provide the link between the Board and the group.

For details of Board, click here.

Working Groups

As referred to above, the Working Groups have a renewed focus and a significant proportion of the CPA’s activities and work will be carried out by the Working Groups. We currently have 16 Working Groups.

Current membership of the Working Groups can be found here and I would encourage all members to put forward their thoughts, experiences and concerns about different issued to the Chairs of Working Groups on an ongoing basis. And if you would like to join a particular Working Group, please contact the office here.

CPA Scotland
Scotland has its own committee, own agenda, and significant devolved responsibilities from the CPA main board. The main focus for the remainder of 2018 and 2019 will be in liaising with the Scottish Government on an integrated upskilling (via training events) of acquiring authorities from both a CPO procedure point of view as well as a number of compensation assessment issues. The desire is to forge relationships to assist in working with the Scottish Government by way of new legislation.

Compulsory Selling Orders are progressing through Scottish Parliament towards enactment which have significant support by many MSPs and Scottish Ministers. Land Value Capture remains on the agenda and there is continued searching on effective ADR proposal for CPO work.

CPA Wales
The Policy Branch of the Welsh Assembly Government have been consulting of the delivery of housing within their own planning system. Analysis is currently underway on a recent consultation, but it is likely to result in changes being made to national planning policy contained in Planning Policy Wales (PPW). There is an intention of strengthening their national planning policy on promoting the use of compulsory purchase powers by Local Planning Authorities to bring forward sites for housing, and to that end they are seeking any research which has looked at the use of compulsory purchase powers for delivering land for housing, or are there any case studies of practical examples where CPOs have been used for housing purposes.

The CPA is keen to engage more with the Welsh Government and to that end are creating a steering group to concentrate on such engagement.

If you know of any such work to assist WAG, please contact the office here.

Young CPA to rebrand to CPA Future
The Young CPA is to be re-branded. They petitioned the board for a change of name, dropping Young. The board agreed and accepted the change of CPA Future.
If you are a member with less than 10 years Post Qualification Experience (ie. from date of MRICS/MRTPI qualification, PQE for solicitors, call date for barristers) this is the only criteria to join. It costs you nothing if you are already a member!

Call for Honorary Members
The board annually review nominations for honorary membership. Current Honorary members can be viewed here. The criteria for consideration can be found as a link at the base of the webpage, i
t’s a general convention that existing board members are not nominated.

Please send a testimonial by Thursday 29 November at 5pm to the office on cpa@compulsorypurchaseassociation.org for those that you feel should be considered.

CPA Events
  • CPA Future - Winter Drinks Event - Thursday 6th December, London - Booking details to follow.
  • Northern CPA- January, Manchester - Further details TBC
  • CPA Dinner - Thursday 7th February 2019 - Book Here
  • CPA Future Event - Thursday 7th March - Further details TBC
  • CPA Future - Spring Drinks- Thursday 2nd May - Date for the diary!
  • CPA National Conference - Wednesday 10 July - Date for the diary!
  • CPA Reform - To be announced

Market News
Acquisition of Land (Rate of Interest after Entry) Regulations
HMT has confirmed the new rate of interest under SI 1995/2262, SI 1994/2791(S.206) in Scotland. Base rate at close of business on the reference day (30 September 2018) was 0.75%, so the rate of interest is 0.25% payable from 1 October 2018. The rate of interest will remain in force until the day preceding the next reference day (which will be 31 December 2018), or until a revised Statutory Instrument is laid which changes the procedures under which the rate is set.

Scottish landowners face cap at existing use value on CPO payments in simplified planning areas
An article from Planning Resource - by Mark Wilding on 25 October 2018

The Scottish Parliament's Local Government and Communities Committee agreed an amendment to the Scotland (Planning) Bill which is intended to ensure that councils should not pay inflated prices for sites purchased through compulsory purchase orders (CPO).
When sites are bought through a CPO, the amendment states that "compensation payable is to be calculated ... taking no account of any value that is attributable to the fact that the carrying out of development is authorised by the scheme".
The amendment would only apply in masterplan consent areas - previously known as simplified development zones - which are intended to frontload scrutiny of potential development sites and deliver planning consents through the zoning of land.

The Planning (Scotland) Bill forms part of a wide-ranging package of planning reforms proposed by the Scottish Government. In August this year the Scottish Land Commission proposed powers for planning authorities to trigger the sale of vacant sites to the highest bidder. Scottish ministers have promised a review of the National Planning Framework and policies to support the creation of a "world-leading digital planning service".

MHCLG consultation on draft guidance relating to the CP powers available to New Town Development Corporations (NTDCs) was launched on 29th October:https://lnkd.in/emxBF4j

The NTDC Working Group will be responsible for preparing the CPA’s response to the consultation, so if you have an opinion that you would like to be considered by the Working Group please contact Vicky Fowler.

Jon Stott was quoted in Planning Resource -

"Of all of the tools in a new town development corporation’s toolbox, wide-ranging compulsory purchase powers will perhaps be the most important and most influential in terms of how successful the corporations are in delivering against their objectives. The CPA welcomes the consultation about how decisions will be taken in relation to CPOs to facilitate new towns, and it is particularly helpful that the draft guidance is largely consistent with the guidance that already exists for urban development corporations.

"The wide definition within the guidance of ‘the scheme’ for any new towns, read together with the planning assumptions that apply under the compensation code, will ensure that land for new towns will be capable of being assembled without corporations paying excessive compensation to landowners. In most cases, as with other cases where compulsory purchase powers are used, it is highly likely that the majority of land for new towns will be acquired based on existing use values if the draft guidance is adopted."

Sir Oliver Letwin published his final report following his independent review of build out rates for residential development on 29th October
The report encourages the use of compulsory purchase powers to enable local authorities to bring forward large sites.

The MHCLG Committee on Land Value Capture published its final report on 10th September
The Report includes some quite radical recommendations including:  
  • It is concerning that, in many low-value areas, the financial compensation offered by local authorities or central government for property is not sufficient to purchase an equivalent replacement elsewhere. The Government needs to assess how best to address this inherent unfairness in the CPO system and explore whether, in some circumstances, it may be more appropriate to provide an equivalent replacement for what has been acquired.
  • We believe that the Land Compensation Act 1961 requires reform so that local authorities have the power to compulsorily purchase land at a fairer price.
  • The first generation of New Towns owed much of their success to the ability of Development Corporations to acquire land at, or near to, existing use value and capture uplifts in land value from the infrastructure they developed and subsequent economic activity to reinvest in the local community. Reform of the Land Compensation Act 1961, alongside the enhanced CPO and land assembly powers that we recommend, will provide a powerful tool for local authorities to build a new generation of New Towns.
Kit Malthouse provided robust oral evidence that made clear his view that the 1961 Act doesn’t require further amendments, and both Vicky Fowler and Barry Denyer-Green also presented oral evidence to the Committee. The CPA provided written evidence and the Land Value Capture Working Group is currently liaising with CLG and providing input that will help to inform their response to the report.

Hot off the press - Aylesbury CPO Inquiry decision

The Secretary of State for MHCLG has confirmed the London Borough of Southwark (Aylesbury Estate Site 1B-1C) Compulsory Purchase Order today Thursday, 15 November, 2018.

Members will recall there was a full re-hearing of the merits of confirming the Council’s CPO after the Secretary of State’s decision not to confirm the Order in September 2016.

As is clear, there’s an awful lot for us to tackle, and – to borrow a favourite phrase of Theresa May - I look forward to getting on with the job!

Best wishes,
Jonathan Stott
CPA Chair
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