The Planning Inspectorate- Wales

Purchase Notices

Purchase notices served under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990

Planning control is intended to regulate the development of land in the public interest. For this reason, planning decisions may conflict with the private interests of land owners. There is no entitlement to compensation for adverse planning decisions because the owners usually have some continuing benefit from current uses.

Occasionally there may be no reasonably beneficial use for the land and so an owner, in certain circumstances, has the right to serve a "purchase notice" requiring the local authority to purchase his interest in land. This note describes how the purchase notice system works.