DEVELOPERS could be forced to pay a landowner millions of pounds in compensation after a site at Watersmeeting was compulsorily purchased for a leisure complex. At a Lands Tribunal hearing at Bolton Town Hall yesterday it was argued that the valuation put on the land by Bolton Council, part of which is now occupied by the Virgin Cinema, was too low. Appearing before Tribunal Member Mr Norman Rose, Bolton Council's barrister, Stephen Sauvain QC argued that the landowners, Tudor Properties Ltd and McGrath and Walsh, should not get extra financial benefit from the sale of the land because of the surrounding improvements resulting from the City Challenge redevelopment of the Tonge Valley.

He argued that before the Council's scheme to improve the area the Tonge Valley was in a "degraded and derelict state" with inadequate access to the land owned by Tudor Properties and only suitable for low grade industrial use.

It was the regeneration scheme which provided the new access road and infrastructure in the area, therefore making the land more valuable.

Bill

"Why should the authority effectively have to pay twice over. Once for the infrastructure and again for the enhanced value of the land," said Mr Sauvain.

Bolton Council argued that the price paid for the land should be between £250,000 and £1.3 million.

But Mr Andrew Gilbart QC, for Tudor Properties stressed that Mr Sauvain was wrong in claiming that the Council would have to find extra cash to pay an increased bill for the land as the cost would be borne by the developers, THI.

"The idea of Bolton ratepayers paying out the money and the landowner gets that money is nonsense," he said.

He argued that, based on comparable prices the parcel of land taken from Tudor Properties and McGrath and Walsh could be worth as much as £6.6 million.

Mr Gilbart told how at the time the compulsory purchase order was applied for in the mid 1990s Tudor Properties already had planning permission for leisure use on the land and was in discussions with developers.

He argued that the land was not low value and there would have been interest in developing the site even without the council's regeneration scheme.

Mr Rose is expected to make a decision about what price will have to be paid for the land in the Spring.

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