Costs - Circular 23/93 (Welsh Office)

Award of costs incurred in planning and other (including compulsory purchase Order) Proceedings

Annex 6 Costs in Respect of Compulsory Purchase and Analogous Orders

General principles

1. There is a distinction between cases where appellants take the initiative, such as in applying for planning permission or undertaking development allegedly without planning permission, and cases where objectors are defending their rights, or protecting their interests, which are the subject of a compulsory purchase order. If a statutory objector to such an order is successful, an award of costs will be made in his favour unless there are exceptional reasons for not doing so. The award will be made against the authority who made the order: it does not, of itself, imply unreasonable behaviour by the authority.

2. To enable an award to be made on grounds of success the claimant must have made a formal objection to the order; the order must have been the subject of a local inquiry which the claimant must have attended (or been represented at); and the claimant must have been heard as a statutory objector. In addition, the claimant must have had the objection sustained by the Secretary of State's refusal to confirm the order, or by his decision to exclude from the order the whole or part of the objector's property.

3. No application for costs need be made at the inquiry by a successful statutory objector; the Secretary of State will write to the parties concerned. There are some circumstances in which an award of costs may be made to an unsuccessful objector or to an order-making authority because of unreasonable behaviour by the other party. In practice such an award is likely to relate to procedural matters, such as failing to submit grounds of objection or serve a statement of case, resulting in unnecessary expense - for example, because the inquiry has to be adjourned or is unnecessarily prolonged. In these cases an application for costs should be made to the Secretary of State immediately after the inquiry. An award of costs cannot be made both on grounds of success and unreasonable behaviour in such cases; but an award to a successful objector may be reduced if he has acted unreasonably and caused unnecessary expense in the proceedings - as, for example, where his conduct leads to an adjournment which ought not to have been necessary.

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