Part 7: Compulsory Purchase Etc Disputes Section 199: Objection to division of land
Land needed for development projects often cuts across parts of landowners’ property. In such cases, acquiring authorities would only seek to compulsorily purchase the relevant parts required. This may result in "material detriment" to the claimant's retained land, where the retained land will be less useful or less valuable to some significant degree.
	Where claimants wish to challenge the acquiring authority’s proposal to take only part of their land, because of the material detriment that will be suffered to their retained land, they can serve a counter-notice on the acquiring authority requesting that they purchase the entire property. The acquiring authority can either withdraw, decide to take all the land or refer the matter to the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) for determination.
	The procedure for claiming "material detriment" has differed depending on whether an acquiring authority has used a notice to treat or a general vesting declaration to exercise its compulsory purchase powers. Where a general vesting declaration has been executed, the procedure for serving a counter-notice in Schedule 1 to the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act 1981 has been followed. A reference to the Upper Tribunal has prevented entry onto land being taken until the issue of material detriment has been resolved.
	Where a notice to treat has been served, divided land is covered by section 8 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965. There has, however, been no statutory procedure for serving a counter-notice; the procedure has been established by case law (see Glasshouse Properties Ltd v Secretary of State for Transport (1993) 66 P&CR 285).
	Section 199(1) introduces Schedule 17 to the Act.
	Section 199(2) introduces Schedule 18 to the Act.
	The intention is to harmonise (as far as possible) the approach to the treatment of material detriment under the vesting declaration and notice to treat procedures and to allow the acquiring authority to enter and take possession of the land they are authorised to take, before any dispute about material detriment has been determined by the Upper Tribunal.