Parker v Secretary of State for the Environment and another

Application to quash compulsory purchase order — Properties in clearance area — Secretary of State’s decision letter confirming compulsory purchase order challenged on two main grounds — Submission that inspector’s report of inquiry and decision letter failed to come to a definite conclusion on a matter much canvassed at inquiry, namely, that on the basis of comparative costs the local authority’s plans were considerably less economic than an alternative scheme — Further submission that, contrary to natural justice, the inspector took into account a factor with which the objectors had not had an opportunity to deal, namely, the effect of redevelopment in smaller, separate parcels in producing fewer dwellings and thus adversely affecting the authority’s ability to deal with housing demands elsewhere in their area — Criticisms rejected by Court of Appeal — Lord Denning’s warning that an inspector’s report and a minister’s decision letter should not be gone through like a statute, in search of semantic objections — As long as they were broadly correct, and no injustice had been done, the resulting order should not be upset by the courts — Appeal from decision of Willis J dismissed This was an appeal by Mrs Joan Parker, of 5 Woldcarr Villas, Hull, from a decision of Willis J upholding the order of the Secretary of State for the Environment confirming a compulsory purchase order affecting a number of houses in Hull. The order was made by Kingston upon Hull City Council in pursuance of a redevelopment scheme affecting land designated as a clearance area. D Keane and W Bowring (instructed by Breeze, Benton & Co) appeared on behalf of the appellant; D Latham (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) represented the first respondent, the Secretary of State; B Ash (instructed by Sharpe, Pritchard & Co) represented the second respondent, the Kingston upon Hull City Council. Giving judgment, LORD DENNING MR said: This case concerns an area of 20 acres of land in Kingston upon Hull. It has been designated a slum clearance area. As far back as 1977 the Hull Council made a compulsory purchase order for most of the area. Under the provisions of the Housing Act 1957 they decided to acquire compulsorily a large number of houses and land and redevelop the area. A number of the residents have objected to the order. The question is whether or not they are justified in so doing. Before going into details, I will relate the history of this matter. Within the area of 20 acres there are 12.54 acres of land on which there are 430 houses which are either completely unfit for habitation and ought to be demolished or in such a condition that they could be rehabilitated only at very considerable expense. On the remaining 6.95 acres there are 105 properties which are not unfit: but they are on what is called ‘added land’. That is land taken to be included in the redevelopment scheme: because — by so including that land — the area will be of a suitable size for comprehensive development. We have been shown a plan in which the clearance areas are in pink and the added lands are in grey. When the compulsory purchase order was made the minister ordered that there should be a public inquiry. It was held by an experienced inspector appointed by the minister. He heard it over five days in September 1978. He made a long report of 71 pages, putting forward the observations of the council on the one side and the objectors on the other. Then, subject to some minor variations, he confirmed the whole of the compulsory purchase order. That was confirmed by the minister. Then the minister gave his decision letter on August 12 1979. Under the provisions of the statute, within six weeks one or more of the residents could make application to the court to have the order quashed on the ground that the requirements of the statute had not been complied with. That is what happened in this case. Mrs Parker was one of the objectors. She occupies a house at 5 Woldcarr Villas. She — or her advisers — having studied the inspector’s report and the decision letter complained that the statutory requirements had not been complied with. The judge found that the objections were not valid. He upheld the order. Now there is an appeal to this court. The statutory requirements with regard to a slum clearance area are contained in the Housing Act 1957. Under section 42, where a local authority are satisfied as respects any area in their district that the houses are unfit for human habitation, and the most satisfactory method of dealing with them is the demolition of all the buildings in the area, they can declare it a clearance area. In addition, under section 43, as soon as they have declared it a clearance area, they can make an order for the demolition of the buildings in the area and can purchase the lands adjacent to it which are necessary for the purpose of securing a cleared area of convenient shape and dimensions. The powers to object — after an inquiry — are contained in the Fourth Schedule to that Act, whereby a person can come to the High Court within six weeks and complain of the order. In passing I would refer to a point which was mentioned by Mr Latham and Mr Keane, namely that this inquiry is a statutory inquiry within the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1971. Section 12(1) of that Act says of this and other inquiries: . . . it shall be the duty of the tribunal or Minister to furnish a statement, either written or oral, of the reasons for the decision if requested . . . Implicitly in this case reasons were requested: and they were, in fact, given. Having received the reasons, the objector can bring them in as part of his argument, or in pursuance of it, so as to make good his case, if he can, under the Fourth Schedule to the Housing Act 1957. As we held in Ashbridge Investments Ltd v Minister of Housing and Local Government [1965] 1 WLR 1320 he can complain if the minister has taken into account something he ought not to have done, or failed to take into account something he ought to have done: or he has misdirected himself in law: or he has given reasons which, on the facts, cannot stand. That is the outline of the legal position in regard to this case. Now I will turn to the facts. The inspector held a very careful inquiry. He went through the facts at length, and made his recommendations. But he failed to deal with three points which are raised by Mr Keane by way of objection to the order. I ought to say firstly that the operative order is contained in the decision letter of the minister. But, as he virtually incorporated the inspector’s report into that letter, one is thrown back to that report to see whether that can be complained of in any way in pursuance of the principles which I have mentioned. The first matter of complaint was about what has been called ‘the comparative cost method’. That arises in this way. Before the inspector a great deal of argument was put forward on behalf of the objectors. They said that it would not be economically sensible to pull down 500 houses on this site: and then have to go to the expense of building new ones. That would cost £6,140,000. They said the best thing would be to demolish only half of them. New dwellings could be built in place of those 250 houses. But, as regards 200 others, what has been called ‘a housing action area’ could be operated. They said that, if that were done, it would cost only £4,040,000. The residents’ association, which was very well-advised, had gone into the matter carefully. They said, using the strategy which they suggested, the proposed redevelopment would cost £2,100,000 less than if the council’s plan were adopted. Mr Keane, on behalf of the objectors, said that that was very widely canvassed at the inquiry. But the inspector’s report and the minister’s letter–although they set out all the contentions–did not come to a definite conclusion upon it. Having read through the inspector’s report, it seems to me implicit that he did come to a conclusion upon it. What he virtually said was this: ‘Accepting that the residents’ plan and strategy would be cheaper, nevertheless, viewing the matter on a much wider basis, the best course of action would be to pull down all the houses and build new dwellings in their place. New houses would last much longer: perhaps 50 or 60 years. Whereas, if half of the houses were renovated, they might last only for about 15 years’. Although he did not spell it out in detail, it seems to me that the inspector’s decision upon those contentions is virtually brought in paragraph 364 of his report when he considered which would be the most satisfactory method generally. He said: Linking together the unfit conditions of the houses in the clearance areas, the general agreement that about half the properties in the area will have to be demolished no matter which course of action is selected to deal with the rest, and the considerations set out in paragraph 363 c to i above, it is apparent that whereas the improvement to a limited standard of some of the dwellings is feasible there is no certainty that the scattered half which would remain would be improved to a standard which would provide good housing for many years to come . . . I need not go further into it. It seems to me that he was taking into account the comparative cost. He was saying that it would be feasible to do what the residents suggested — and feasible to do it cheaper. But, taking into account the wider considerations, he said at paragraph 365: In general the most satisfactory method of dealing with the conditions which exist is by demolishing not only the conceptual half in respect of which there is no dispute, but also most of the other houses and with them most of the added lands. So it seems to me that Mr Keane’s first point is not good: and I would agree with Willis J in holding that that objections fails. I need not go into subsidiary objections which were raised, but the other main objection in effect was this: The inspector took on himself an additional reason which the objectors had not had a chance of dealing with. They ought to have had a chance of dealing with it. As it was not afforded to them, there has been a want of natural justice in that regard. It is said that he took into account the effect on other areas in Hull — such as West Hull. The paragraph which gave rise to this objection is 363(f). It said: Further, the redevelopment of smaller, separate parcels of land almost invariably results in fewer dwellings being built than if those areas had been amalgamated, and the joint site redeveloped. Although the council’s ability to suitably rehouse the families displaced by clearance has been questioned, I accept their submission that they can do so in respect of this area; but building fewer dwellings here would be likely to affect adversely their ability to deal satisfactorily with demands arising out of any future clearance action in West Hull. The judge said that he found some difficulty with this part of the case: but, on the whole, he thought that the questions which were being canvassed there were peripheral matters. He said that, if they had been further canvassed, they would not have affected his mind or that of the Secretary of State: and that no breach of the rules of natural justice arose. It seems to me that the observations of the inspector were made using ordinary commonsense: and it was not necessary for him to invite further observations from the objectors. Therefore there was no breach of the rules of natural justice. In other words, it seems to me that the objections taken to the inspector’s report were almost in the nature of semantic objections. They were objections as to the way one part or the other of it was phrased. On this point, I would like to say that it is a mistake to go through an inspector’s report, or a decision letter, as if one were going through a statute to see if one can find a hole in it. These inquiries are conducted by laymen — experience, good laymen — and they set out their reasons (in this case exceedingly well and in detail) for coming to their decision. As long as it is broadly correct, and no injustice has been done, then the order should not be upset by the courts. Looking at the report of the inspector and the decision letter of the minister, it seems to me that no reasonable objection could be made to them. No statutory requirement has been omitted as far as I can see. The reasons are not such that they can be upset on any of the submitted grounds which I stated earlier on in this judgment. So, on the whole, I find myself in agreement with Willis J and would dismiss the appeal. Agreeing, WALLER LJ said: The inspector’s report was a very full report. Mr Keane, on behalf of the appellant here, makes two main complaints. At the inquiry the objectors had sought to say that if their plan were carried out it would cost £4m whereas the corporation’s plan would cost £6m. Mr Keane’s complaint is that that issue was not dealt with by the inspector. It appears from his report — which, as I say, was a very full one — that that consideration was certainly in his mind. He quoted in paragraph 39 the difficulty which the council had had on another occasion in persuading owners to obtain improvement grants and do the necessary improvements. There had been quoted to him two houses which had been improved out of 12 when an order of that kind was made; and the inspector quoted evidence from the local authority of the average cost of a full improvement grant standard to one of these houses set out in detail. He quoted the reply of the council to the association’s submissions at paragraph 78 in this way: ‘On the question of costs of improvement, there is no great difference between the submissions of the council and those of the WRA; because it is evident that the cost specified by the latter relate only to improvement to ‘intermediate’ standard rather than the full improvement standard required by the Council.’  Having quoted those, there is then paragraph 364, which my Lord has already quoted, but perhaps I could take the liberty of mentioning one particular sentence: ‘. . . it is apparent that whereas the improvement to a limited standard of some of the dwellings is feasible there is no certainty that the scattered half which would remain would be improved to a standard which would provide good housing for many years to come.’  Then at paragraph 372 he again refers to the alternative way, showing that he has given full consideration to it. In my judgment, I agree both with Willis J and my Lord that it is quite clear that the inspector had those considerations fully in mind, and I do not think for myself that he can be faulted for not having said more about it. The second main complaint which Mr Keane makes is the point about natural justice arising from two subparagraphs in the inspector’s report, paragraph 363(e) and (f). I would just quote (e) because severe criticism of (e) was made by Mr Keane to support what Willis J described as ‘the cart before the horse.’  Subparagraph (e) says this: A decision to exclude half the unfit properties from the order could result in the exclusion also of more than half the added lands, even if all the unfit properties were in one compact area. Pausing there, the inspector is simply quoting the effect of the association’s objection. They wish to have half the unfit properties excluded from the order, and he is stating, as it seems to me, pure commonsense. Then it goes on: . . . but where, as in the submission for the WRA, the excluded properties are in scattered smaller areas, the proportion and the extent of added lands which could be justified as reasonably necessary for the satisfactory development or use of the cleared areas would be that much less, with a corresponding loss in the number of housing units which could be built 12 and then he quotes an example. Again, as it seems to me, that is a statement of simple commonsense. If you exclude one large area of houses, there will be in most cases an incidental result of having to exclude some added land (I use the phrase from the section of the Housing Act), but if you take an area — in this case something like 20 acres — and you, so to speak, take spots over that 20 acres, the effect on the whole plan is enormous, and the resultant number of houses which can be built will be greatly reduced. I am not sure how many individual areas the objectors have, but at any rate it is a considerable number with a number of islands in the area of 20 acres, and the effect would be much greater than the same amount of land in one spot. That is all that the inspector is saying; and he quotes an example, which has been drawn to our attention, which shows in one small corner that there would be a very considerable effect in reducing the amount of added land and accordingly the amount of land which would be available for redevelopment. One could state the proposition in other words. If you have an area of 10 acres with no obstructions in it, you would be able to build a certain number of houses. If you halved it directly down the middle, you would halve the number of houses which could be built in it. But, if you subtracted from that area of 10 acres 10 different portions of half an acre (that is the same as reducing it by half), the reduction in the number of houses would be very much greater. As it seems to me, that is all the inspector was saying in that paragraph. So I do not find for myself that there was any injustice. Indeed I do not even share with Willis J any of the reservations which he expressed about it. Then with regard to the next subparagraph (f), similarly my Lord has already quoted it, but I would just come to the last sentence: . . . but building fewer dwellings here would be likely to affect adversely their ability to deal satisfactorily with demands arising out of any future clearance action in West Hull. Again that is a matter of commonsense. Mr Keane very fairly agreed that if the word ‘West’ had been missed out he could not really complain about that sentence. Therefore it was perhaps unfortunate that the inspector happened to put it in, but he was simply quoting an example that, if you build fewer houses, the ability to rehouse citizens from other parts of the town will be thereby reduced. In my judgment, no complaint can properly be made about the inspector’s report or about the minister’s letter, and I agree that this appeal should be dismissed. DUNN LJ also agreed. The appeal was dismissed with one set of costs only, the order for costs not to be enforced without leave of the court.