BRITISH LAND SCHEME

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 230, 26 June 1944, Page 6

BRITISH LAND SCHEME

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, June 23. Long-awaited plans by the British Government for the control of land for purposes of reconstruction are published today as a Bill and a White Paper. The Bill deals with a reconstruction of bomb-blighted areas and .those suffering from bad layout and obsolete development, and the White Paper sets out a general scheme for the future control of land in town and country.

The Government accepts the Uthwatt Committee’s analysis of the problem as being substantially correct, but does not adopt the committee's detailed recommendations for dealing with compensation and betterment. The Government puts forward a general scheme of its own, the main points of which are: (1) A universal requirement making it necessary for landowners' to obtain consent from the local planning authorities before changing the use of their land; (2) the imposition of a betterment charge amounting to 8 per cent, of the increased value in all cases where the value of land is increased by granting permission for a change in its use; (3) payment of compensation for loss of development value to the owners in cases where it can be shown that their land possessed such values in March, 1939; and (4) a land commission is to be set up for the centralization of the finances for compensation and development.. The White Paper explains that the purchase price to be paid on public acquisition of land will for five years be fixed at the standard value in March, 1939.