Case Studies

Compulsory Purchase Orders are an important tool for local authorities and other public bodies to use as a means of assembling the land needed to help deliver social and economic change. Used properly, they can contribute towards an effective and efficient urban regeneration, the revitalisation of the communities.

An integral part of the Councils Private Sector Housing Strategy involves encouraging and persuading owners of substandard properties to improve and return them to permanent residential use.  This is achieved by offering owners grants, legislative  powers and other incentives. 

However, there will always be situations where owners of tenanted properties fail to comply with statutory notices and owners of empty properties resist all encouragement to bring them back into residential use.  In these circumstances the only remaining and realistic option is to threaten the use of compulsory purchase.  This threat is often enough to ensure that an owner will carry out improvements and return a property to beneficial use.

Where the threat fails to achieve the desired result, the Authority must make use of Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) as a last resort measure. A CPO should only be made where there is a compelling case in the public interest and the authority should be satisfied that the CPO sufficiently justifies interfering with the human rights of those with an interest in the land affected.