NOTICE OF BLIGHT IN RESPECT OF ECCLESIASTICAL BUILDINGS (Hansard, 22 February 1973)

§ Mr. Sutcliffe
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is a simple attempt to restore equity. I have for some time been frustrated in correspondence with the Department because under Section 192 and Section 201 of the 1971 Act resident owner-occupiers and some mortgagees are eligible to serve a notice of blight and the Bill extends the powers to personal representatives of those categories. The churches are still unprotected, although they are equally open to the ravages of development and blight.
My specific concern has been the Thornaby Methodist Church which is on the edge of the A66 development in Teesside. All the property that surrounded the church has been empty for months. The road swept through the middle of the congregation and dispersed it and the church has been left isolated and subject to vandalism. The church authorities can get no one to act. They cannot serve a notice of blight and they therefore cannot secure a compulsory purchase or a speedy purchase. They have just had to hang on to try to operate from a derelict and totally unsuitable site. Worse than this, they cannot get their money out and this means that without resources they cannot prepare for a new church on a new site. It will take at least two years to build a new church. All this has been going on for the past two years.
I ask the Government to accept the clause as a way of dealing with this situation, which I cannot believe applies only to the church at Thornaby. If my right hon. Friend can think of some other way of dealing with this situation and of putting right this wrong in a simpler way, I shall be content by whatever means he does so.

§ Mr. Graham Page
My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. Sutcliffe) has drawn attention to a situation where a blight notice cannot be 858 served in relation to ecclesiastical buildings which, being exempt from rating, do not qualify for protection under the existing blight provisions. The blight purchase scheme is directed to alleviating hardship among individual owner-occupiers, that is to say householders and the owners of small businesses when they suffer from the effects of blight. I do not know whether we could equate a church with a small business or with the owner of a dwelling house, those two being particularly liable to suffer from the results of blight.
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I appreciate that there are many cases in which the congregation of a church is moved because of the clearance of an area and the church is left without purpose, without good use. It is a difficult position. The church has the benefit of the reinstatement clause in the Land Compensation Act. If it can show that it is building another church in another area it will get the reinstatement value. If it forces the sale by a blight notice, it is in effect saying that it will not reinstate, and therefore it will not receive such compensation. We should consider that point before rushing into this too hastily.
But my hon. Friend has presented a case that should be considered. We should have to get over the valuation difficulties, the difficulty of equating the non-rated church property with other non-residental property, and the difficulty of seeing that the hardship is as great for the church as for the householder and the small business, and that it should be brought within these terms.
I ask my hon. Friend to let me examine the matter to see first whether the case is substantial, whether there are churches in great hardship in those circumstances, and, secondly, whether we can do anything about it. I shall let him know if there is any possibility of our adding anything to the Bill to relieve the hardship of those churches that remain unused because they have lost their congregations.

§ Mr. Sutcliffe
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for his sympathetic consideration. I shall be very happy if he can find a way to deal with my problem, even if there is no problem in other parts of the country.