Is 'Hope Value' A Help Or Hindrance?

The concept of ‘hope value' was introduced after complaints that landowners, whose land had been compulsorily acquired for the building of the new towns after the Second World War, had not been fairly compensated. The Reform of the Land Compensation Act 1961 allowed actual or potential planning permission to be factored in when calculating how much compensation landowners should be entitled to when their land is subject to a CPO. Although the original premise was to ensure that farmers who lost productive agricultural land would receive existing use value (EUV) of the land, plus a premium to reflect future lost earnings, many now argue that such payments are anachronistic and responsible for the artificial inflation of land prices.