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Compulsory purchase

Reviewing outdated compulsory purchase laws to support a faster, simpler and more modern land acquisition process. The consultation period for this project is open until 31 March 2025.

Consultation open until 31 March 2025

If you have an interest in or awareness of this area of law, we want to hear your views.

Find out how to respond

Read the full consultation paper and summary There is also a Welsh version of the summary.

Respond using the online form.

If you need any of the documents in an alternative format, email us at: compulsorypurchase@lawcommission.gov.uk.

Watch a discussion of the consultation

Problem (Back to top)

Compulsory purchase is a legal mechanism that enables certain bodies to acquire land without the consent of the owner.

The ability to buy land using compulsory powers is essential for large-scale projects that enhance local and national infrastructure. The number and scale of such projects is likely to intensify in coming decades, particularly in light of the UK’s net zero climate targets. Compulsory purchase powers are also needed for much-needed regeneration of towns and cities and to provide new homes.

At the same time, compulsory purchase powers can cause significant detrimental impacts on those individuals and businesses affected by them and should only be used as a last resort, when it is in the public interest.

It has been widely acknowledged for over two decades that the law of compulsory purchase in England and Wales is fragmented, hard to access and in need of modernisation. In the early 2000s, this led to a three-year project by the Law Commission, towards a compulsory purchase code, which resulted in the publication of two reports dealing with compensation and procedure respectively.

The recommendations of these reports were favourably received but not fully implemented. Since then, incremental changes to the law have been made but calls for a comprehensive modern code have continued.

Project (Back to top)

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (formerly the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) has asked the Law Commission to review the current law on compulsory purchase and compensation.

The Law Commission will review the:

procedures governing the acquisition of land through compulsory purchase orders (CPOs)
system for assessing the compensation awarded to parties in relation to such acquisitions

The aim is to produce a draft Bill consolidating the law and making proposals for technical changes to ensure that the law is suitable for its intended use.

The consultation

We published a consultation paper on 20 December 2024 setting out initial views on the legal framework governing compulsory purchase and compensation. The paper is split into three parts: procedure, compensation and supplementary matters.

In the consultation paper, we ask questions designed to find out more about how the compulsory purchase system works in practice, as well as inviting views on our provisional proposals.

Next steps

After publishing a consultation paper, we are seeking views from anyone with an interest in or awareness of this area.

The consultation is open until Monday 31 March 2025. We encourage people to respond using the online form.

We will use the responses to the consultation to develop our final recommendations for reform, which will form the basis of our final report and the draft Bill which will accompany it.