BOMBED AREAS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 17, 21 January 1944, Page 4

BOMBED AREAS

DEMAND FOR LEGISLATION

Lord Astor is leading an agitation among local authorities at Home to compel'the Government to introduce at once its promised Bill empowering local authorities to acquire land for redevelopment purposes. Lord Astor's campaign follows on complains from local authorities that until they have these powers and until the Government declares its final policy in regard to the Scott and Uthwatt Reports they cannot move hand or foot to plan their areas. A new argument now introduced to enforce the demand for an immediate Bill empowering the local authorities to acquire land is an allegation that speculation is increasingly going on in bombed sites and that they are changing hands at prices higher than 1939 values, and that therefore future planning is already being prejudiced. On the question of introducing a Bill to enable public acquisition of land perhaps the nearest thing to a Ministerial declaration came from Mr. Strauss, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, in the House of Commons last May it is stated in the "Manchester Guardian." He was replying to the debate on the Town and Country Planning (Interim Development) Bill, and, speaking of the public acquisition of land, said: "There must be a Bill to deal with that subject, and it may be the next Bill which my right hon. friend (Mr. W. S. Morrison) will introduce." I THE COMPENSATION LIMIT. It is in the highest degree im- | probable that the Government will anticipate this general measure and I introduce an ad hoc measure to stop speculation in bombed sites, states the report. On the Government's side the answer would be that there is no need for such a measure and for this reason. The Uthwatt Committee, in its interim report of July, 1941, answering the Government's request for advice on what immediate steps should be taken, to prevent post-war reconstruction from being prejudiced, recommend (among other things) that the Government should "announce as a general principle that compensation ultimately payable in respect of the public acquisition of land, or of the public control of land, will not exceed sums based on the standard of ,'pre-war' values—i.e., values at March 31, 1939." The Government made the desired announcement on July 17, 1941. Lord Reith in the Lords and Mr. Arthur Greenwood in the Commons declared that the Government accepted the principle of compensation at 1939 values. Anyone who since that declaration has bought land in bombed area at values higher than 1939 has therefore done so at his own risk, and if it is acquired from him by the local \ authority. under the promised new measure, he will be entitled to nothing more than compensation at 1939 The Uthwatt Committee expressly said that it did not think legislation to stop speculation, and some other points referred to it, was necessary. It considered that such an announcement as it recommended and Mr. Arthur Greenwood and Lord Reith made would be sufficient and, while not preventing legitimate dealings in land i would ;'give fair warning to persons who might be prone to seek in war conditions or anticipated works of reconstruction an opportunity for finan-Clol-f\ain^at^ he Public expense." ' !*v * L the Gover>nment cannot say that the speculation in bombed sites does not strengthen the case for bringing in-the general-measure for the public acquisition of land as early as R?- SS ilb!S: /Meanwhile, some authorities 12 innn7i at ia Government warning thai the 1941 declaration was intended to prevent precisely the kind of speculation that is now going on is urgently called for.