The Emergence and Development of Statutory Process for the Compulsory Purchase of Land for Transport Infrastructure in England and Wales, c.1530–1800

Abstract

ABSTRACTBefore 1539, highway improvement in England and Wales (other than the clearance of illegal obstructions) was achieved only by crown licence following a satisfactory inquisition ad quod damnum. Magna Carta chapter 39 recorded that ‘that no free man is to be … disseised … except by … the law of the land’, but in the wake of other wide-ranging reforms in the 1530s, amid a growing sense of the common weal and desire for ‘improvement’, parliament overcame this obstacle to economic infrastructural development by adjustment of ‘the law of the land’, assuming prerogative power and delegating by statute the authority for the compulsory purchase of land. In this case it was for river navigation at Exeter, and not until 1662 was the power extended to roads. Compensation was always to be paid, but legislation rarely stipulated the explicit outright purchase of freehold. Parliament was willing to grant these powers to trustees or other public bodies, or indeed to private individuals, but only if it was considered that doing so served the public interest.