The Landowners' Lot
Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve, the Chairman of the Central Land Board, renewed this week an appeal which he has made publicly more than once before to property-owners to make their claims for compensation in respect of loss of development value under the Town and Country Planning Act. Under this complex and arbitrary measure the sum of £3oo,000,000 was set aside as a fund from which at least fractional amends could be made to landowners and lease- holders for the enormous losses which the Act inflicted on them. So far only ro6,000 persons-40 per cent, of them the owners of single plots—have put in their claims, against which the sum of
£731,000—less than 0.3 per cent. of the total available—has been set aside ; and only six weeks remain before the final date—already once put forward—after which no further claims will be considered. The reason why so few have been made is the extremely imprecise and controversial criteria by which the whole question of develop- ment value is assessed in the Act. Landowners and their advisers have been holding their hands for as long as possible in. the hope that some authoritative interpretation would be forthcoming, and— although none has—there is little doubt that the next few weeks will see an eleventh-hour rush of claims for compensation. Mean- while the effect of the Act on development has naturally been adverse, though less -so in the case of large corporations than of private individuals. As an experiment in the technique of taking away rights in perpetuity from the citizen and transferring them to the State the Act can only be described as a success by doctrinaires who have had nothing to do with its practical application.
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