County council threatened with judicial review over £120m land sale
A £120m land deal involving Hertfordshire County Council has put the local authority at risk of a judicial review after residents claimed that some of the land was sold unlawfully.
Residents represented by the campaign group Fight the Freight sent a pre-action protocol letter to the county council late last month (29 September) in an effort to stop the land from being developed into a major rail freight interchange.
The claim centres around an argument that the council previously bought the land near the village of Radlett to preserve its status as Metropolitan Green Belt and as open space for the local community.
Residents have also raised concerns about the impact of the development - which includes a series of warehouses - on wildlife, road congestion, and air pollution.
The basis of the purchase was the Metropolitan Green Belt Act 1938 and the Open Space Act 1906, and paperwork regarding the sale referred to the land as "open space," according to the group.
Hertfordshire bought the land in 1985 for £1 following a 21-year-long deal with building materials company Tarmac Plc to extract sand and gravel from the plot.
As part of the 1985 deal, the company agreed to restore it to Green Belt land status for agricultural or recreational use.
Industrial property giant SEGRO has since bought the land as part of a £120m deal involving the local authority, Tarmac Plc. and Gorhambury Estates Company Ltd.
The whole site spans a thousand acres in total.
Under SEGRO's ownership, the site will be developed into a strategic rail freight interchange that will include up to 3.6 million square feet of logistics warehousing, including ancillary warehouses.
SEGRO is also set to build a 610-acre country park around the terminal. The development has received planning permission from the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove.
However, the campaign group argues that: "[The open space reference] creates a statutory trust and can only be sold by the local authority if certain steps set out in the Acts are carried out – obtaining written permission from a minister or advertising the land and public consultation in the weeks prior to the sale, neither of which was done – nor can it be done retrospectively."
Under this ground, the claim references the Supreme Court ruling in Day,R (on the application of) v Shropshire Council [2023] UKSC 8, which allowed a resident's appeal resident after a town council disposed of land subject to a statutory trust for public recreational purposes without complying with the statutory requirements.
Regarding the £1 sale of the land, the group also claimed that "no company would have sold general investment land worth millions for development for just £1, had they not agreed it was for the public good".
A spokesperson for Hertfordshire County Council said: “The council took the difficult decision to sell the land after planning permission for the site was granted by the Secretary of State.
“The decision to sell the land followed all due process and the council worked tirelessly to secure the best value for taxpayers.”
Adam Carey
