The Government have today laid in Parliament the Compulsory Purchase (Inquiries Procedure) Rules 2007. These rules replace the existing two sets of rules for inquiries into ministerial and non-ministerial compulsory purchase orders, which date from 1994 and 1990 respectively.

The main reason for the new rules is to take account of changes to the procedure and new terminology introduced by part 8 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. These include introducing a longer deadline at key points in the inquiries to ensure that appropriate time is given to those wishing to put forward objections to the compulsory purchase order.

The rules were also drafted to build on the Government’s commitment, given in 2002, to combine both sets of rules and also to reflect current practice as adopted in procedure rules prepared more recently for other types of inquiries, such as those for planning inquiries.

The Council on Tribunals, which was consulted on the draft rules as part of a public consultation exercise and specifically on the final draft, is content.