Secretary of State for Transport v Curzon Park Ltd & Ors

Factual and Procedural Background

The Appellant compulsorily acquired four neighbouring development sites on the eastern edge of The City’s centre to construct the HS2 railway terminus. Each Respondent owned one of the sites and, after acquisition, applied to the local planning authority (“the Council”) for a Certificate of Appropriate Alternative Development (“CAAD”) under section 17 of the Land Compensation Act 1961 (“LCA”). The Council granted certificates for substantial mixed-use schemes on each site.

The Appellant appealed the certificates to the Upper Tribunal, which treated a common preliminary issue across all four appeals. The Tribunal’s answer permitted decision-makers to consider CAAD applications or decisions relating to other land as evidential material. The Court of Appeal, however, allowed the Respondents’ “cancellation argument,” holding that section 14(5) requires all such external CAAD material to be ignored in the notional “cancelled scheme world.” The Supreme Court (constituted by Judge Sales, Judge Hamblen, Judge Kitchin, Judge Leggatt and Judge Rose) heard the Appellant’s further appeal.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Does the “cancellation assumption” in section 14(5) LCA compel the decision-maker to disregard CAAD applications or decisions concerning other land?
2. May evidence contained in those external CAAD materials nonetheless inform what planning permission could reasonably have been expected for the land in issue under section 14(4)(b)?
3. Are CAAD applications/decisions equivalent to planning applications or permissions, and do they constitute material planning considerations?
4. How, in the cancelled-scheme valuation exercise, should alternative sites, cumulative impacts, incompatibility and public-law consistency be treated?

Arguments of the Parties

Appellant's Arguments

• The Court of Appeal erred: section 14 does not prohibit consideration of real-world evidence known to the market at the valuation date, including CAAD applications or decisions for other land.
• Although a CAAD is not a planning permission, the data within such applications/decisions can illuminate market expectations about development prospects, alternative sites, cumulative effects and policy constraints.
• The decision-maker should be free to accord whatever evidential weight it deems appropriate to that material; outright exclusion is unjustified and contrary to the “reality principle” endorsed in precedent.

Respondents' Arguments

• Section 14(5) expressly requires the scheme to be assumed cancelled at the “launch date,” so no CAAD applications could exist in the counterfactual world; they must therefore be ignored.
• Allowing outside CAAD material would undermine certainty, create sequencing difficulties, and risk over-compensation inconsistent with the principle of equivalence.
• CAAD applications/decisions are not planning applications/permissions and can never be material planning considerations; treating them as such conflicts with the statutory framework.

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The Supreme Court systematically addressed six issues:

1. Cancellation Assumption. The Court held that section 14(5) requires only the scheme’s cancellation to be assumed; it does not mandate the exclusion of all real-world evidence arising from the scheme. If a CAAD application for other land existed and was “known to the market” at the valuation date, nothing in the statute forbade its evidential use.
2. Equivalence of CAADs and Planning Permissions. A CAAD application is not a planning application, and a CAAD decision is not a planning permission. Neither is automatically a material planning consideration.
3. Reality Principle and Temporal Limits. Section 14 fixes the valuation at the vesting date; speculation about what might have occurred between the launch date and that valuation date is impermissible. Only circumstances objectively known to the market on the valuation date may be considered.
4. Alternative Sites, Cumulative Impact, Incompatibility. Decision-makers must still evaluate whether, as at the valuation date, reasonable expectations existed that other land would come forward in a manner engaging these planning concepts. Existing real-world permissions (section 14(2)(a)) or market-known prospects (section 14(2)(b)) may inform that analysis.
5. Evidential Use of External CAAD Material. Information contained in another landowner’s CAAD application (or decision) may shed light on market expectations, development patterns or policy needs. The local planning authority or Upper Tribunal may attribute whatever weight is appropriate, provided it does not treat the CAAD as a surrogate planning permission.
6. Consistency Principle. Because a CAAD is not a planning permission, it does not automatically trigger consistency obligations. Nevertheless, if a planning authority has resolved identical planning issues in one CAAD, it may, as a matter of public-law fairness, need to decide subsequent CAADs consistently, depending on context.

Applying this analysis, the Court rejected the Court of Appeal’s blanket exclusion of other-land CAAD material and reinstated the more flexible approach adopted by the Upper Tribunal.

Holding and Implications

Holding: The appeal is allowed to the limited extent that the Upper Tribunal’s declaration is restored. Decision-makers may, but are not obliged to, consider CAAD applications or decisions relating to other land as evidential material when assessing appropriate alternative development under section 14(4)(b) LCA.

Implications: Local planning authorities and the Upper Tribunal may now examine external CAAD documentation to illuminate market-known circumstances at the valuation date, while maintaining a clear distinction between CAADs and real planning permissions. The ruling clarifies the boundaries of evidential relevance under section 14 and is likely to influence future compulsory-purchase compensation assessments, though it sets no entirely new substantive test.