Commentary on Sections Effect of infrastructure consent orders Section 99 – Blighted land
255.An infrastructure policy statement identifying a location as a suitable (or potentially suitable) location for a significant infrastructure project may create blight at that location, affecting the values of land. Blight may also result from an application being made for an infrastructure consent order authorising the compulsory acquisition of land or from such authorisation being given.
256.Section 99 amends the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (“the TCPA”) so as to allow owner-occupiers affected in this way to have the benefit of the existing provisions of the TCPA relating to blight by making these descriptions of land “blighted land” for the purpose of the TCPA.
257.The TCPA provides a procedure which enables persons with certain interests in the land that is blighted to serve a notice on an “appropriate authority” requiring the authority to purchase their interest. The effect of subsection (6) is that the “appropriate authority” in the case of blight caused by an infrastructure policy statement is the statutory undertaker named as an appropriate person to carry out the development specified in the infrastructure policy statement, or the Welsh Ministers where there is no such named undertaker. The Welsh Ministers are to determine any disputes as to who the appropriate authority is.
258.Subsection (4) prevents the appropriate authority from serving a counter-notice to a blight notice on grounds of having no intention of conducting the development.