Hoveringham Gravels Ltd v Chiltern District Council

Appeal from Lands Tribunal raising matters of importance–Compensation for compulsory acquisition of "back land"–Certificate of appropriate alternative development in respect of total area of front land and back land not applicable to determine compensation for back land only–Claim under section 7 of Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 not competent for alleged severance loss to back land itself, but section 7 applicable to owners’ loss due to the retained land (the front land) being rendered less valuable–Pointe Gourde principle not applicable in view of existence of two schemes–Case remitted to Lands Tribunal to assess section 7 loss–Leave to appeal to House of Lords This was an appeal by Hoveringham Gravels Ltd from a decision of the Lands Tribunal on the amount of compensation payable by Chiltern District Council (formerly Chesham UDC) in respect of the compulsory purchase of 1.81 acres of land (the "back land") south-east of Chesham, Bucks, part of a larger area the remainder of which (the "front land," which was not the subject of the present proceedings) had been acquired by the Bucks County Council. The facts are fully set out in the judgment of the court which was prepared and read by Roskill LJ. Waller LJ, although agreeing with the judgment, was not present in court when it was read. The decision of the Lands Tribunal (Sir Douglas Frank QC and J R Laird FRICS) was reported at (1976) 237 EG 811, [1976] 1 EGLR 185. Iain Glidewell QC and D M W Barnes (instructed by Bird & Bird, agents for Rollit, Farrell & Bladon, of Hull) appeared for the appellants, Hoveringham Gravels Ltd; William Glover QC and M B Horton (instructed by Wray, Smith & Co, agents for Blaser, Mills & Lewis, of Chesham) represented the respondents. ROSKILL LJ, reading the judgment of the court, at the invitation of Stephenson LJ, said: This appeal by way of case stated by the Lands Tribunal dated August 2 1976 arises from their decision dated December 18 1975 and is yet another step in the secular struggle between the appellants, Hoveringham Gravels Ltd, and the respondents, Chiltern District Council (formerly Chesham Urban District Council) as to the quantum of compensation to be paid by the latter to the former in respect of the compulsory purchase by the latter of 1.81 acres, part of a larger area of 2.462 acres of land situate about 1 mile south-east of Chesham in Buckinghamshire. We shall refer to the 1.81 acres as the "back land," the balance of the area (0.652-acre) as the "front land"–in these respects following the Lands Tribunal’s definitions. We will refer to the entirety of the area as "the whole area." 18 Though the areas of land are small, the areas of conflict between the parties are large, and some of the questions to which this appeal gives rise are of general importance, both to local authorities and to landowners. We think it right to emphasise at the outset of this judgment that although we are concerned in this appeal only with the dispute between the appellants and the respondents, for the case stated arises only from the decision in that dispute, there were before the Lands Tribunal two references, the present and a reference of a dispute between the appellants and the Buckinghamshire County Council (hereinafter called "the county council") in respect of the compensation to be paid by the latter to the former in respect of the compulsory purchase by them of front land. The award of £21,915 by the Lands Tribunal to the appellants against the county council–Bundle A, pp 20/21–has not been the subject of appeal by either party by way of case stated. It is the award against the respondents of £13,750 in respect of the back land which alone is challenged. We leave on one side for the moment the fact that that figure is admitted by both parties to be on any view wrong and must be increased to £21,250, even if the decision of the Lands Tribunal be otherwise upheld on that part of the appellants’ claim. This error appears to have arisen from an unfortunate misunderstanding by the Lands Tribunal of an agreement made on one point during the hearing. We will return to this matter towards the end of the judgment. The central difficulty in this appeal arises from the fact that although the original proposal some nine years ago was for the compulsory acquisition by the respondents’ predecessors of the whole area as a public open space, a proposal which led to the appellants applying for and obtaining a certificate of appropriate alternative development of the whole area pursuant to section 17 of the Land Compensation Act 1961 on June 15 1970, that proposal was not carried into fruition. In due course different proposals were put forward which ultimately involved not the whole area as such, but the front and the back land as separate entities. Applications for planning permission to develop the whole area were finally rejected on June 29 1972 (Bundle B, pp 49/50), principally because a proposal by the county council to widen Latimer Road, Chesham, would involve the use of what became the front land for that purpose, as a result of which the remainder–the back land–would become inadequate both in area and in access facilities for the proposed development envisaged by the certificate of June 15 1970. The proposal for road widening was first mooted by the county council towards the end of 1971 and had been fully canvassed at an inquiry held in March 1972. It was as a result of this decision on June 29 1972 that on the next day, June 30 1972, the appellants served on the respondents a notice requiring them to purchase the whole area. A copy of that notice which was served in pursuance of section 180 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, is not with our papers, but its terms can be sufficiently deduced from those of the respondents’ counternotice, objecting to compliance with that notice, dated September 18 1972 (Bundle B, pp 67/68). This counternotice was served pursuant to section 181(1)(c) of the 1971 Act. The respondents’ reasons for the counternotice are set out in paragraph (4)(i) to (vi) of the document and are repeated at pp 811, 813 of the decision. We need not set them out in full. Suffice it to say that the respondents relied on the fact that the refusal of planning permission on June 29 1972 had been because of the county council’s road-widening scheme, the cost of which would fall on the county council–that it would be wrong to impose upon the local ratepayers the burden of acquiring the whole area until final improvements regarding that road-widening scheme had been decided upon and that the respondents would not, apart from the possibility of obtaining other financial assistance towards the purchase of the land as a public open space, contemplate proceeding with the original scheme because of the burden which the existence of the June 15 1970 section 17 certificate would cast upon them in the event of compulsory purchase by them. This purchase notice was referred to the Secretary of State who, in accordance with his statutory duty under section 182 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, gave notice of his proposed action on November 7 1972 (Bundle B, pp 77/78). After considering certain submissions which are summarised at p 813 of the decision and the report of an inspector at yet another inquiry which had been held on February 7 1973, on March 13 1973 (Bundle B, pp 80-82) he expressed himself as satisfied that the conditions specified in section 180(1)(a) and (c) were fulfilled. He confirmed the purchase notice subject to the modification that the county council should be substituted as the purchasing authority in respect of the front land, as it now became, the respondents being the purchasing authority of the remainder (the back land), both authorities being deemed to have served their respective notices to treat on that day, that is March 13 1973. Negotiations followed for the assessment of compensation, but the respondents claimed that the June 15 1970 certificate had no application to the assessment of compensation for the back land. On December 18 1973 the appellants applied for further section 17 certificates for the front land and the back land without prejudice to their contention as to the applicability of the June 15 1970 certificate to the back land. On December 20 1973 the appellants referred their claim for compensation for the back land to the Lands Tribunal, but no similar reference in respect of the front land was made until August 5 1974. On February 21 1974 (Bundle B, p 104) the county council issued a section 17 certificate in respect of the front land for residential development at a density not exceeding six houses to the acre. Condition 4 of this certificate is important: "The development hereby permitted shall be carried out comprehensively with the land at the rear of the site shown hatched black on the plan forming part of the application."  On November 8 1974 a further section 17 certificate was issued in respect of the back land. It was common ground that this latter certificate was out of time for the purposes of section 17. It contained no parallel condition such as condition 4 of the former certificate, but it did contain a requirement as to access by means of a private drive, which would of course have traversed the front land. The main argument before the Lands Tribunal and initially before us turned upon the extent to which, in the light of the history we have outlined, the appellants were still entitled to rely upon the certificate of June 15 1970 as stating the assumptions by reference to which the valuation of the back land had to be made in the instant reference. If a valuation of the whole area made upon the basis of that certificate produced a figure of what we will call £Z, then the appellants’ entitlement to compensation should not, it was said, be adversely affected by the fact that the Secretary of State’s confirmation of the purchase notice introduced the additional requirement of two acquiring authorities instead of one, one for the back land, namely the respondents, and the other for the front land, namely the county council. If £Z were the proper value of the whole area and £X the value of the back land and £Y the value of the front land, then £X plus £Y could not be less than £Z. Since £Y had been fixed by the Lands Tribunal as the value of the front land at £21,915 (decision, p 815) and there was no appeal either by the appellants or by the county council from that determination, the proper value (£X) of the back land would not be less than £Z minus £21,915. Yet the Lands Tribunal had only awarded £13,750 as the value of the back land. The total of these two figures was far less than £Z would be had £Z been quantified solely upon the assumptions made19 in the June 15 1970 certificate and this argument was not affected in principle by the fact that it was conceded that on any view the figure of £13,750 must be increased to £21,250. The revised total was still vastly less than £Z would have been on the assumptions in question. The Lands Tribunal rejected this argument, holding that the June 15 1970 certificate, though still extant at the date of the hearing, had become irrelevant in the changed circumstances and that the front land and the back land must each be valued separately without regard to what the position would have been had the scheme envisaged when the June 15 1970 certificate was issued come to fruition (decision, p 815). Questions (a) and (b) in paragraph 4 of the special case were directed to securing the decision of this court upon this issue. Though expressed as two separate questions, the first of which the Lands Tribunal answered in favour of the appellants and the second adversely to them, both leading counsel agreed in argument before us that it was difficult to justify treating the two questions as separate, the essential question being whether the appellants were entitled to insist upon the valuation of the back land being carried out upon the basis of the assumptions made in the June 15 1970 certificate, notwithstanding that that certificate related to the whole area and–on this branch of the argument–the Lands Tribunal and this court were concerned only with the valuation of the back land. We think the right approach to this question is first to ask ourselves: What is the subject matter to be valued?  The answer to that question must, we think, be "the back land."  It is to be recalled that section 22(1) of the 1961 Act defines "the parties directly concerned" in relation to an interest in land as "the person entitled to the interest" and "the authority by whom it is proposed to be acquired," while section 39(2) defines, inter alia, "the relevant interest" as "the interest acquired in pursuance of [a notice to treat]."  It seems to us clear that Part III of the 1961 Act, which includes section 17 under which the right to a certificate of appropriate alternative development arises, envisages an assessment of compensation by reference to, and only to, the interest in the land to be acquired and as between the persons entitled to that interest on the one hand and the acquiring authority on the other. Other land of the landowner which might have been compulsorily acquired in other circumstances but which was not so acquired in the event seems to us to be irrelevant, when the question to be asked and answered is–what is the subject matter to be valued?  The answer in the present case must be "the back land" and nothing else. We accordingly reject Mr Glidewell’s contention that in the present case the interest in land means the appellant’s interest in the whole area. Mr Glover rightly stressed that the entitlement to compensation for compulsory acquisition is statutory, as is the measure of that compensation. One has therefore to examine the relevant statutory provisions to determine what the entitlement is and how the compensation is to be assessed. Section 5(2) of the 1961 Act provides that "the value of land shall, subject as hereinafter provided, be taken to be the amount which the land if sold in the open market by a willing seller might be expected to realise."  The statutory precursor of this subsection was considered by this court in Horn v Sunderland Corporation [1941] 2 KB 26. It is sufficient for present purposes to refer to–it is not necessary to quote at length–the well-known passage in the judgment of Scott LJ at pp 48 and 49 in which he explains what he calls "the rule of market value" and reiterates what he calls "the principle of equivalence which is at the root of statutory compensation, the principle that the owner shall be paid neither less nor more than his loss."  Relying on this passage, the appellants claim that under the Lands Tribunal’s decision they will receive much less than their true loss because that loss is the value of the whole area which they have, in the events which have occurred, been prevented from developing in accordance with the June 15 1970 certificate. Therefore their loss in relation to the back land is the proportionate part–proportionate as to area–of their loss in relation to the whole area. This argument presupposes that the Lands Tribunal should have valued the back land by reference to and only to the June 15 1970 certificate. Mr Glidewell urged that that certificate once issued remained in being for all time, or, if not for all time, at least up to and including the time when the Lands Tribunal made their decision. It attached to the land, as it were, in rem, and whether or not the proposals involving different acquisitions by one or more different acquiring authorities ultimately emerged, that certificate alone remained the relevant document by which the market value of the back land had to be assessed under section 5(2). One is of course involved in a highly artificial field. Section 17 of the 1961 Act, with its provisions for certification of appropriate alternative development, involves that the land in question is to be deemed to have planning permission, which ex hypothesi in reality it would never have obtained because of the proposals for compulsory purchase. But we think it is carrying artificiality too far to say that a section 17 certificate granted in respect of a whole area must forever after be applied for the purpose of valuing any part of that area, whatever the circumstances in which the valuation of that part falls subsequently to be made. We think that that conclusion is reinforced by the fact that in the instant case there were two subsequent section 17 certificates, one for the front land and one for the back. We do not follow the logic of an argument which involves wholly ignoring those latter certificates, even though the appellants obtained them without prejudice to their main contention–issued after the purchase notice had been confirmed and looking only at the earlier section 17 certificate issued in wholly different circumstances which subsequent events had overtaken. The appellants relied upon a decision of Winn J, as he then was, in Lucas (F) & Sons Ltd v Dorking and Horley Rural District Council (1966) 17 P & CR 111. But there the partial development proposed was held to be comprised within the planning permission originally granted. This decision was subsequently treated by the Divisional Court in Pilkington v The Secretary of State for the Environment [1974] 1 All ER 283 (rightly, if we may respectfully say so) as "a rather exceptional case."  In Pilkington’s case it was held that where one of a number of grants of planning permission had been implemented, it was not thereafter permissible for the landowner to implement another grant of planning permission which was inconsistent with the permission already implemented. We respectfully agree with and adopt the reasoning in the judgment of Lord Widgery CJ at p 289. By parity of reasoning, when one is dealing with a deemed planning permission we think it is impossible logically to hold that the valuation of the back land, in relation to which a later specific section 17 certificate has been issued, must be determined by reference to, and only to, a previous section 17 certificate issued in relation to the whole area and a different proposed compulsory acquisition. The Lands Tribunal expressed their conclusion at p 815 of the decision thus: "a permission for the comprehensive development of an area does not permit piecemeal development not forming part of a scheme for the whole area."  This passage was criticised as inconsistent with a previous passage on p 814 reading thus: "We find nothing in the statutes nor in the June 1970 certificate to support the proposition that the certificate is only good for the acquisition for which it was granted."  We do not think there is any inconsistency between these two passages if each is read in its proper context. The latter passage is clearly intended to be directed to the position in the instant case. In the result, we reject this part of the appellants’ submissions–that is that the whole area should be valued20 and the resultant valuation apportioned between the front land and the back land in proportion to their respective acreages–and we reach the same conclusion as did the Lands Tribunal as to the inapplicability of the June 15 1970 certificate. We confess that we have reached this conclusion with some regret and we share the view of the Lands Tribunal (p 815) that this is a very difficult case. The change of plan and the introduction of two acquiring authorities in place of one was not of the appellants’ making and it seems inherently unjust that the basis of valuation of the whole area should differ according to an administrative decision which would seem to have been dictated by considerations of attempting to secure a more equitable distribution of the burden of paying compensation between the two acquiring authorities rather than for any other reason. It is difficult to see why such a decision should be allowed to alter the appellants’ rights, and we cannot think that this consequence of his action can have been in the mind of the Secretary of State when he took the decision that there should be two acquiring authorities and not one. If our conclusion on this part of the case be right, no doubt this is a matter which will be borne in mind in any further case when a similar position may arise. But it seems to us, as it did to the Lands Tribunal, that the language of the statute compels an assumption of separate sales and purchases of the front land and of the back land. If that be right, then we find it difficult to justify in logic the application of the June 15 1970 certificate and the ignoring of the two later separate certificates, even though the application of the former would be likely to produce a financially more favourable result for the appellants on the question of valuation. Mr Glover sought to meet the argument based upon the apparent injustice of the result for which he contended, which we have felt obliged on this part of the case to accept, by urging that if in the result £X plus £Y did not equal £Z, that was due to the fact that the appellants had wrongly formulated their claim against the county council in respect of the front land, and in consequence had received a smaller sum of compensation for that compulsory acquisition than they should have done. He contended that the appellants had not advanced a proper additional claim against the county council in respect of the acquisition of the front land by reason of damage which, he argued, they as owners of the front land might have claimed they had suffered by reason of the severance of the back land from the front land. They had, he contended, thus ignored or overlooked the provisions of section 7 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965. We shall have to consider the true construction of the section hereafter. The Lands Tribunal’s determination against the county council will be found at pp 815, 817 of their decision and we have already pointed out that this determination is not the subject of any appeal to this court. The Lands Tribunal was obviously troubled at the figure awarded and inferentially thought it was too high. But it appears to have been awarded on the basis of the county valuer’s unchallenged evidence, taking a basis of valuation which the Lands Tribunal thought to be wrong. Since there is no appeal in that reference and the county council is not a party to the present proceedings in this court, we think that in all the circumstances it would not be right to draw any inference one way or the other from the award made and we are not prepared to accept as established that the figure awarded against the county council might have been higher had the claim been otherwise or differently advanced. As an alternative to his main argument, Mr Glidewell relied upon section 7 of the 1965 Act to increase the appellants’ entitlement to compensation for the compulsory acquisition of the back land beyond that to which the appellants would be entitled in accordance with section 5(2) of the 1961 Act. The argument, if we followed it correctly, was that the severance of the whole area into the front land and the back land in principle could affect and in this case did affect both the land acquired, that is to say the back land, and "the other land of the owner" (the front land). Emphasis was placed on the words "damage (if any) sustained by the owner of the land by reason of the severing of the land purchased from the other land of the owner or otherwise injuriously affecting the other land."  It was argued that section 7 enabled severance loss to the back land to be additionally recovered as well as the market value of the back land. With all respect to the ingenuity of the argument (which seems not to have been advanced before the Lands Tribunal–there is certainly no reference to it in their decision), we think that it breaks down as a matter of the construction of the section. In construing the words "by reason of the severing of the land purchased," the later words "or otherwise injuriously affecting the other land" cannot be ignored. It seems to us clear that the section on its true construction is envisaging an additional head of compensation for the owner of the land taken by reason of other retained land of his being less valuable to him through that retained land being severed from or otherwise injuriously affected by the compulsory acquisition of the land taken. We arrive at that conclusion solely as a matter of the construction of the section, but we think that consideration of the earlier legislation and Scott LJ’s judgment in Horn v Sunderland Corporation, which was concerned with that earlier legislation, supports our view. Section 7 is the legislative successor of section 63 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act 1845 (as amended). Its text and that of section 49 of the same Act will be found discussed at pp 44 and 45 of Scott LJ’s judgment. It is true that the former section 63 and the present section 7 are not quite textually identical, but we cannot believe that section 7, when enacted in 1965, was intended to effect so drastic a change in the law as would be involved if we were to accept this part of Mr Glidewell’s argument. Mr Glidewell also complained of the 50 per cent discount upon the compensation awarded (Lands Tribunal’s decision, p 817) for the risk of planning permission not being granted and "more particularly for the difficulties of access."  He said that one did not know what discount had been allowed under each head and also urged that there was more than "a strong possibility" that planning permission would have been granted. This type of assessment seems to us to be entirely a matter for the Lands Tribunal and it would be wrong, even if we thought they had proceeded upon a wrong basis of the assessment of the market value of the back land, to send the decision back for reconsideration of a matter of this kind. As we do not think the Lands Tribunal erred in this respect, we find it unnecessary to discuss this matter further. We now turn to consider the third question which arises from the special case, namely, whether upon the construction we have adopted of section 7 of the 1965 Act, the Lands Tribunal ought to have awarded the appellants some additional sum as part of their claim for the compulsory acquisition of the back land for the damage (if any) the appellants have sustained as owners of the retained land (the front land). We find it strange that the extremely difficult problems to which this part of the case gives rise find so little mention in the decision. Though both learned counsel assured us that this point had been canvassed, it seems from the tenor of the decision as a whole that the weight of the argument on both sides before the Lands Tribunal must have been directed to the question with which we have already dealt rather than to the possibility of an additional claim under section 7. Section 7 is obliquely referred to at p 814 of the decision, where the Lands Tribunal set out one part of Mr Glidewell’s argument: "If treated as two acquisitions, he said, the fair21 thing to do is to value as a whole; otherwise it would be necessary to make provision for acquiring access and for awarding compensation for severance and injurious affection."  We have italicised those last few words. They are our italics. The Lands Tribunal rejected the main contention, but we cannot find that this possible alternative argument is anywhere dealt with, thus depriving us of the benefit of the views of this most expert tribunal which we would have greatly valued on a matter on which authority seems strangely lacking. We must, we think, proceed on the basis that they intended to reject this alternative argument, but that argument is clearly open to the appellants in this court in view of the terms of the special case. Mr Glidewell argued that section 7 applied both to the front and to the back land and that the front land had lost part of its value by being severed from the back land which had the benefit of the 1974 certificate. Mr Glover expressly accepted that if the appellants could show damage to "the other land," ie the front land, by the respondents’ compulsory acquisition of the back land, they were entitled to recover as a separate head of claim damage caused to the appellants by the severance of the back land from the front. But he stressed that the relevant words of section 7 were "by reason of the severing of the land purchased from the other land of the owner" and not "by reason of the purchase of the land" compulsorily acquired. Mr Glover further expressly conceded that the front land was "other land" of the owner for the purposes of section 7. He did not seek to argue that there could be no relevant severance merely because of two simultaneous or virtually simultaneous compulsory acquisitions. But he said that by the time of the hearing there had been no damage to the appellants by reason of the severance of the back land from the front land. Any damage they had suffered arose not from the severance but from the use of the front land for the purposes of road widening. It is, we think, important to consider exactly what the section requires a landowner to establish before he can make good a severance claim under section 7. The section, as we think, has nothing to do with the diminution in the value of the back land because of its severance from the front land. It is concerned with a case where the landowner can show damage by reason of the severance of the land taken from other retained land of his. We are in this case concerned not with realities. We are dealing with what, in relation to planning permission, is to be deemed to have been granted, whether upon terms or otherwise. In 1970 the whole area is to be deemed to have had (subject to certain conditions) planning permission as set out in the June 15 1970 certificate. This of course would result in the whole area possessing a substantial value for residential purposes as envisaged in that certificate. The use of the whole area for residential purposes was prevented by the respondents who, however, did not go on with the open space scheme because of the resultant burden of cost arising from the issue of the June 15 1970 certificate. We do not see why, when the back land was severed from the front land, the appellants as owners of the front land did not suffer damage by reason of the front land then being deprived of its own share of its notional residential value for development under the June 15 1970 certificate. The February 21 1974 certificate made the alternative development therein envisaged conditional upon it being carried out comprehensively with the land at the rear of the site; that is to say, the back land. This deemed permission, one would have thought, must have involved the front land possessing a lesser value than it had previously possessed when it had the benefit of the June 15 1970 certificate applicable to the whole area. Mr Glover sought to meet this argument by saying that the damage, however it be quantified, was not suffered by the severance of the back land from the front, but from the compulsory acquisition of the front land for road widening purposes. The requisite element of causation between severance and damage was not therefore, he argued, established. We think that in the ultimate analysis of the problem the question does become one of causation, and indeed we did not understand Mr Glover seriously to dispute this. It is no doubt true that in one sense severance only takes place upon completion following compulsory acquisition, but we cannot think that the answer to this question can depend upon the accident, which compulsory sale is in fact, first completed. If it be the fact that the front land upon severance becomes less valuable to the appellants as owners of the front land, so that they suffer damage because it cannot be developed as part of the whole area together with the back land which is being compulsorily acquired, we do not see why that damage is not suffered by the appellants by reason of the severance of the back land from the front land. The basic philosophy of the statutes is to give the appellants compensation for the loss they have suffered, no more, no less, and that loss seems to us to be required to be calculated by reference to the value of the back land itself, which is compulsorily acquired, to which has to be added the damage, if any, suffered by the appellants as owners of the front land in consequence of the back land being severed from the front land. We see no reason to put too narrow a construction on section 7 so as to deny the appellants compensation for this extra loss if, viewing the matter broadly, that extra loss can fairly be said to have been caused by severance or indeed in a case where severance, though not the sole cause of that extra loss, is a substantial cause. We have therefore reached the conclusion that the Lands Tribunal has, with all respect, erred in failing to quantify this extra loss and add it to the correct figure for the market value of the back land itself. Reluctant as we are to contemplate that this protracted dispute should be still further prolonged, in these circumstances we see no alternative but to remit the decision to the Lands Tribunal for further consideration in this respect. The question of the quantum of such extra loss will have to be determined in the light of what we have said in this judgment. If there had been an appeal in the cases of both the front land and the back land, we would have expected the value of the front land plus the severance claim, and the value of the back land plus the severance claim, to approximate to the value of the whole area, ascertained by reference to the June 15 1970 certificate. Mr Glidewell also argued that, upon the footing that the two compulsory acquisitions were all one scheme, the application of the Pointe Gourde principle required the Lands Tribunal to ignore any appreciation or depreciation due to the scheme itself. In the light of the decided cases and of section 9 of the 1961 Act, to none of which is it necessary to refer in detail, there can be no doubt as to the principle. It is as to the possible application of the principle that problems may arise. Mr Glover argued that since the Lands Tribunal had found as a fact that there were two schemes, there was no room for the application of the principle. Mr Glidewell argued that on the facts as found there was one scheme to be carried out with two acquiring authorities and it was open to us to review the finding of the Lands Tribunal that there were two schemes, since that finding was founded upon a view of the facts which became erroneous in point of law in the light of the evidence. We think that the Lands Tribunal’s finding was one which on the evidence that tribunal was entitled to make, and indeed we would probably, were the matter open to us to consider as one of fact, have reached the same conclusion as did the tribunal. Accordingly, the elaborate arguments to which we listened regarding the possible application of the Pointe Gourde principle require no further consideration in this judgment. It only remains to mention the error which the Lands Tribunal made regarding the figure of £13,750, and the value per acre by which that figure was reached. The matter is22 dealt with in correspondence in exhibit GEWS to the affidavit from the appellants’ solicitors. It being now common ground that there was a misunderstanding and that the figure of £13,750 should be increased to £21,250, we answer question (4)(f) accordingly. By agreement, the correct figure will be treated as substituted for the figure of £13,750 in the decision and we need say no more on this point. In the result, while we uphold the Lands Tribunal’s amended decision as to £21,250 (as it must be treated to be), we remit that decision for further consideration and determination of the correct figure, if any, to be added thereto in respect of the appellants’ section 7 claim in the light of what we have said earlier in this judgment. Case remitted to the Lands Tribunal to determine, after hearing evidence and argument, the quantum of compensation payable under section 7 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 for the extra loss suffered by the appellants as owners of the front land in consequence of the severance of the back land from the front land. No order for the costs of the appeal. Leave to both parties to appeal to the House of Lords if so advised.