ABSTRACT
The Secretary of State need confirm a purchase notice covering land that includes some land that was the subject of restrictions against development imposed by a planning condition or was clearly intended as amenity land in a planning application: section 142 of the 1990 Act. The point is that once a purchase notice is accepted, the authority is deemed to be compulsorily purchasing the land, and the rules and basis of compensation for a compulsory purchase should apply. Broadly, the purpose of blight notices is to compel authorities to purchase land in advance of their compulsory purchase needs in order to mitigate hardship. A personal representative of a deceased owner-occupier has a similar right to serve a blight notice and must also show he has been unable to sell except at a substantially lower price: section 161 of the 1990 Act.
