Resident secures compensation award over impact of relief road scheme 50m from property

David Cochrane had claimed that recent local transactions suggest this home had lost £25,000 in value but tribunal chair Diane Martin decided £10,000 was the correct figure.

The case arose after Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council completed the A6 Manchester Airport Relief Road project in 2018.

Mr Cochrane’s property is a five-bedroom semi-detached brick house, constructed in the 1960s, and the tribunal heard the widened road is now 5m closer at a distance of 72m from the rear façade and 50m from the end of the garden.

He said the property suffered a general increase in noise, vibration and traffic fumes from the new layout on the A34, together with more noise from the substantially increased traffic on the A555.

Mrs Martin said she accepted evidence of detriment to the property’s value but said there was “very little basis” on which to alight confidently on what the value would have been had it been sold and the road scheme not built.

She concluded: “On balance, given that the existence of an increase in physical factors is established, I consider that it is likely that this would lead a prospective buyer of the property to obtain a further marginal discount, and that a sum of £10,000 would reflect that discount, being equivalent to 2.3% of £440,000.”

The latter figure was what the tribunal chair arrived at as a likely sale price.

Mrs Martin said: “I accept the claimant's own first-hand evidence that there was an increase in physical factors, particularly noise, at the property as a consequence of the scheme, which is supported by the compensating authority's technical evidence (albeit to a degree which is described technically as slight).

“I award the sum of £10,000 as compensation for depreciation arising from the increase in physical factors.”

Mark Smulian