Infrastructure (Wales) Act 2024

28 Obtaining information about interests in land

(1) Where a person is applying, or proposes to apply, for an infrastructure consent order subsections (2) and (3) apply for the purpose of enabling the person (“the applicant”) to comply with provisions of, or made under, section 29, section 30 and sections 64 to 72.

(2) The Welsh Ministers may authorise the applicant to serve a notice on a person specified in subsection (4) requiring the person (“the recipient”) to give to the applicant in writing the name and address of any person the recipient believes is one or more of the following—

(a) an owner, lessee, tenant (whatever the tenancy period) or occupier of the land;

(b) a person interested in the land;

(c) a person having power—

(i) to sell and convey the land, or

(ii) to release the land.

(3) The Welsh Ministers may authorise the applicant to serve a notice on a person specified in subsection (4) requiring the person (“the recipient”) to give to the applicant in writing the name and address of any person the recipient believes is a person who, if the order sought by the application or proposed application were to be made and fully implemented, would or might be entitled to make a relevant claim—

(a) as a result of the implementing of the order,

(b) as a result of the order having been implemented, or

(c) as a result of the use of the land once the order has been implemented.

(4) The persons are—

(a) an occupier of the land;

(b) a person who has an interest in the land as freeholder, mortgagee or lessee;

(c) a person who directly or indirectly receives rent for the land;

(d) a person who, in pursuance of an agreement between that person and a person interested in the land, is authorised to manage the land or to arrange for the letting of it.

(5) Regulations may make provision about a notice under subsection (2) or (3), including provision about—

(a) the form and content of a notice;

(b) how a notice is to be given;

(c) the timescale for responding to a notice.

(6) A person commits an offence if the person fails without reasonable excuse to comply with a notice under subsection (2) or (3) served on the person.

(7) A person commits an offence if, in response to a notice under subsection (2) or (3) served on the person—

(a) the person gives information which is false in a material particular, and

(b) when the person does so, the person knows or ought reasonably to know that the information is false.

(8) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine.

(9) In subsections (2) to (4) “the land” means—

(a) the land to which the application, or proposed application, relates, or

(b) any part of that land.

(10) Any other expression that appears in either of paragraphs (b) and (c) of subsection (2) and also in section 5(1) of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 (c. 56) has in those paragraphs the meaning that it has in section 5(1) of that Act.

(11) In subsection (4) as it applies for the purposes of subsection (3) “the land” also includes any relevant affected land (see subsection (12)).

(12) Where the applicant believes that, if the order sought by the application or proposed application were to be made and fully implemented, there would or might be persons entitled—

(a) as a result of the implementing of the order,

(b) as a result of the order having been implemented, or

(c) as a result of the use of the land once the order has been implemented,

to make a relevant claim in respect of any land or in respect of an interest in any land, that land is “relevant affected land” for the purposes of subsection (11).

(13) In this section, “relevant claim” means—

(a) a claim under section 10 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 (compensation where satisfaction not made for compulsory purchase of land or not made for injurious affection resulting from compulsory purchase);

(b) a claim under Part 1 of the Land Compensation Act 1973 (c. 26) (compensation for depreciation of land value by physical factors caused by use of public works);

(c) a claim under section 101(3).