Orders of the Day — Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 12 May 1954.

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Commander Galbraith:

I hope not, and I hope they will find it very much to their liking. In fact, I have had expressions of opinion from authorities in Glasgow, connected with the Corporation of that City, who are delighted with certain proposals in the Bill.

There are safeguards in the Bill for dealing with cases where, on the strength of a planning permission, an owner has made a start to improvements, or a person-has bought land for development at the ordinary market price, and before he has been able to develop the land it has been compulsorily acquired.

Before leaving Part III, I want to explain in more detail the reasons for Clause 42 on which, I am sorry to say, I have learned that there has been considerable misconception. Indeed, my right hon. Friend is somewhat grieved that his good intentions have been so sadly misconstrued. The purpose of the Clause is to remove the formula in the present Housing Act which, whatever its merits may have been when it was first introduced, is now obsolete and inequitable.

What Clause 42 does is to say that unfit houses shall no longer be valued as cleared sites available for redevelopment but shall be valued on the same basis as ordinary properties—that is, on the state which they are in at the time at which they are purchased. Under the formula which we are repealing, owners stood to gain something which the open market would never have allowed—that is, relief from the cost of demolition, since the formula required the unreal assumption to be made that this had already been carried out. Perhaps if I may give a short example to the House it will show more clearly what Clause 42 does.

Let us suppose that a site was valued at £300 cleared but there was a building on it, the cost of the demolition of which would be £200. Under the old formula, the local authority would have had to pay to the owner of the land £300 and then would have had to demolish the building at a further cost of £200. So the total outlay on the part of the local authority would have been £500. Under the new provisions of this Bill, the local authority will pay to the landlord the difference between the site value of £300 and the cost of the demolition of the building, which was £200; that is to say, it will pay £100. Instead, therefore, of the total outlay of the local authority being £500, it is £300, £100 of which is paid to the landlord and the other £200 being the cost of clearing the site.