Cases - Stokes v Cambridge Corporation

Record details

Name

Stokes v Cambridge Corporation

Date

(1961)

Citation

13 P&CR 77

Keywords

Compensation - compulsory purchase of land - ransom strip - assessing ransom value

Summary

In this claim for compensation for compulsory purchase of land, a key issue was what the purchase of additional land for access purposes would cost a hypothetical developer of the subject land. The access land was in effect a ransom strip.

The Court held that a proper price to be attributed to the ransom strip was one-third of the increase in value of the subject land attributable to acquisition of the ransom strip. Although this was a decision on its own facts, later decisions (e.g. Tamares v Fairpoint [2007] 1 WLR 2167) have used this case as a useful guideline for assessing ransom value, and have tended to follow, at least broadly, the one-third rule of thumb.