Town and Country Planning Act 1954

50 Exchequer grants to local authorities

Subject to the next following section, the following section shall be substituted for section ninety-three of the principal Act:—

“93 (1) Regulations made under this section with the consent of the Treasury may provide for the payment by the Minister to local authorities of grants of such amounts, and payable over such periods and subject to such conditions, as may be determined by or under the regulations in respect of expenditure incurred by those authorities, whether before or after the passing of this Act—

(a) in connection with the acquisition of land approved by the Minister for the purposes of the regulations, or in connection with the clearing or preliminary development of land acquired by those authorities with such approval;

(b) in the payment of compensation under Part III or Part VIII of this Act (other than compensation payable in respect of land compulsorily acquired by virtue of section nineteen of this Act), or in taking any action under section twenty-four, twenty-five or twenty-six of this Act, or under the said section twenty-four as applied by any of the provisions of Part III of this Act;

(c) in connection with the carrying out of any work of restoring, repairing or adapting buildings acquired, by those authorities, being work approved by the Minister for the purposes of the regulations in the case of a building as respects which, immediately before the acquisition thereof, a building preservation order was in force or could have been made.

(2) Regulations made under this section may provide for the payment of grants thereunder, in such cases and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed, by or under the regulations, in respect of land appropriated by local authorities (whether before or after the passing of this Act) for any purpose approved by the Minister in accordance with the regulations, as if the land had been acquired for that purpose at a cost of such amount, and defrayed in such manner, as may be determined, by or under the regulations.

(3) Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provisions of this section, any regulations made under this section may provide—

(a) for the inclusion, in the expenditure incurred by local authorities in the acquisition of land approved by the Minister for the purposes of the regulations, of any sums, or any part of sums, paid by those authorities in connection with any restriction imposed on the development or use of the land by or under any enactment (whether by way of compensation or by way of contribution towards damage or expense incurred in consequence of the restriction);

(b) for the calculation of grants payable under the regulations by reference to the amount of the annual costs incurred or treated as being incurred by local authorities in respect of the borrowing of money to defray expenditure in respect of which the grants are made, or by reference to the excess of such annual costs over receipts of those authorities which are attributable to such expenditure, or over the annual value of such receipts, as may be prescribed by the regulations.

(4) The amount of any grant paid to a local authority in accordance with regulations made under this section—

(a) where that amount is calculated by reference to annual costs incurred or treated as incurred by the authority in respect of the borrowing of money to defray expenditure in respect of which the grant is made, or by reference to the excess of such annual costs over the receipts, or the annual value of receipts, mentioned in paragraph (b) of the last foregoing subsection, shall not exceed an amount equal to fifty per cent. of those costs, or of that excess, as the case may be ;

(b) in any other case, shall not exceed an amount equal to fifty per cent. of the amount of the expenditure in respect of which the grant is made:

Provided that, in relation to—

(i) land acquired for use as a public open space ; or

(ii) such part, if any, of any land appropriated as mentioned in subsection (2) of this section as is intended for such use,

the regulations may provide that, if in any particular case the Minister is satisfied that, having regard to the expenditure in respect of which the grant is to be made and the financial circumstances of the local authority concerned, it is just that a higher grant should be made, the amount of the grant in that particular case shall be an amount equal to such percentage, exceeding fifty but not exceeding seventy-five per cent., of the costs, excess or expenditure aforesaid as the Minister may determine.

(5) Any expenses incurred by the Minister in the making of grants in accordance with regulations made for the purposes of this section shall be defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament.

(6) In this section the expression ' preliminary development ', in relation to land approved for the purposes of regulations made thereunder, means the carrying out of any work determined in accordance with the regulations to be work preparatory to the development of the land for the purposes for which it was acquired or appropriated, or work comprised in the initial stages of such development.”