Planning Bill

As the noble Lord said, restrictions are already in statute to prevent the compulsory acquisition of certain types of land. In the case of common land, open spaces or allotments, which are specifically raised by the amendments, the Acquisition of Land Act 1981 already specifies that such land—above a de minimis threshold—can be compulsorily acquired only through special parliamentary procedure, unless the promoter proposes replacement land which the Secretary of State certifies as being equally advantageous to the users. Amendment No. 379 requires some additional wording to be added to that test. I assure the noble Lord that all the evidence suggests that the test already works well at present. Clause 127(6) already requires the Secretary of State to notify interested persons before issuing a certificate and to invite representations. That allows interested persons to comment specifically on how advantageous the proposed replacement land would be to them. When assessing whether the replacement land is ““no less advantageous””, one relevant consideration will be the location of the land. The further away the replacement land is from the common land in question, the less advantageous it is likely to be. The meaning of ““no less advantageous”” therefore already allows consideration of the location of the proposed replacement land. Amendment No. 381 probes the test of whether replacement land will be ““adequate”” to compensate commoners and the public when a right over common land, open space or an allotment is compulsorily acquired. Again, in the clause we have replicated the existing test from the Acquisition of Land Act 1981, which has worked well and is commonly understood by practitioners. Amendment No. 382 refers to cases where a development consent order extinguishes a public right of way. Clause 132 replicates the provisions of Sections 251 and 258 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which provide that that can be done only if the decision-maker is satisfied that an alternative right of way has been or will be provided, or that an alternative right of way is not needed. The noble Lord asks for assurance that this would mean an alternative right of way that is no less advantageous to the existing users of that right of way. We do not disagree with his general point—we would expect that the IPC would ensure that any alternative right of way would provide that, based on the evidence submitted to it and the contents of the NPS. However, his specific suggested wording could lead to confusion, as it would be difficult for any diversion to a public right of way to be ““no less advantageous”” than the original one. We prefer to leave it to the IPC to decide on individual cases in the light of the evidence submitted to it and the guidance given in the NPS on the Government’s policy on rights of way. The noble Lord also raised the issue of transfer of common land by agreement. We do not think that this will be especially relevant to the Bill. We expect that where a promoter of an NSIP wants to acquire common land, whether by agreement or otherwise, it would be deregistered as commons. There are already powers in paragraph 2 of Part 1 of Schedule 5 for the IPC to make provision for the suspension or extinguishment of or interference with rights over land. Where a promoter applies for the compulsory acquisition of common land, we expect the deregistration of commons to be an automatic part of the development consent order. Likewise, where the promoter has already acquired common land by agreement, we expect it to apply for the deregistration of commons as part of the application for a development consent order. The noble Lord also made a number of points about the Housing and Regeneration Act.