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Agriculture Act 1967

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This is the original version (as it was originally enacted).

26Grants for amalgamations and boundary adjustments.

(1)The appropriate Minister may in accordance with a scheme make grants out of money provided by Parliament towards expenditure incurred in connection with the carrying out—

(a)of transactions for securing that agricultural land which is an uncommercial unit, but which together with some other agricultural land could form an intermediate unit or commercial unit, shall be owned and occupied with that other land, and

(b)of transactions for securing that, where an intermediate unit or a commercial unit is not all in the same ownership, any part of it comes to be in the same ownership as the rest of that unit, or in the same ownership as some other part of that unit, but excluding transactions which bring into the same ownership and occupation two or more parts of the unit each of which could by itself form a commercial unit, and

(c)of transfers or exchanges of agricultural land (or estates or interests in agricultural land) for the purpose of giving more satisfactory boundaries to one or more agricultural units;

and for the purposes of paragraph (a) above, such assumptions as the appropriate Minister may consider reasonable may be made as to the improvements and works which will be carried out for the benefit of the unit to be formed.

Transactions within paragraphs (a) and (b) above are in this Part of this Act referred to as " amalgamations ", and transactions within paragraph (c) are in this Part of this Act referred to as " boundary adjustments ".

(2)A scheme under this section may restrict the amalgamations and boundary adjustments to which it applies in any way, and may in particular exclude amalgamations of land which has reverted from being in single ownership or occupation.

(3)The expenditure towards which a grant may be made under this section in connection with an amalgamation or boundary adjustment shall be—

(a)the costs of the amalgamation or boundary adjustment consisting of surveyor's fees and legal costs, stamp duty on any conveyance, lease, tenancy agreement or mortgage or heritable security, any compensation for disturbance, and the cost of obtaining any requisite consent of the Ministry of Finance for Northern Ireland;

(b)in the case of an amalgamation—

(i)the cost of such work of prescribed kinds as in the opinion of the appropriate Minister becomes necessary or expedient as a direct consequence of throwing together the units of land which, prior to the amalgamation, were in separate ownership or occupation, and separating them from land which is not to form part of the resulting unit,

(ii)the cost of such improvements of prescribed kinds as in the opinion of the appropriate Minister are for the benefit of the resulting unit as a whole ;

(c)in the case of a boundary adjustment, the cost of such work of prescribed kinds as in the opinion of the appropriate Minister becomes necessary or expedient as a direct consequence of the alterations of boundaries.

In this subsection " compensation for disturbance " means compensation for disturbance under—

(a)section 34 of the [1948 c. 63.] Agricultural Holdings Act 1948,

(b)section 35 of the [1949 c. 75.] Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1949, or

(c)section 3 of the [1870 c. 46.] Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870.

(4)A scheme under this section may make different provision for amalgamations resulting in an intermediate unit and those resulting in a commercial unit; and in particular may restrict grant under subsection (3)(b)(ii) above where the amalgamation results in an intermediate unit to grant in respect of improvements which in the opinion of the appropriate Minister would continue to be of benefit to the land if the intermediate unit subsequently becomes a part of a commercial unit.

(5)The amount of any grant payable under this section towards expenditure shall be one-half of that expenditure so far as approved by the appropriate Minister.

(6)A scheme under this section shall provide for grant in respect of any expenditure being payable by reference to proposals which have been submitted to and approved by the appropriate Minister, and the approval—

(a)may be given before or, in such classes of cases as the appropriate Minister may direct, after the carrying out of the proposals,

(b)may be made subject to such conditions as the appropriate Minister may specify, and in particular subject to any condition as to the time within which the proposals are to be carried out,

(c)may be varied or withdrawn by the appropriate Minister with the applicant's written consent.

(7)After the payment of any grant under this section or subsection (1)(a) of the next following section in connection with an amalgamation the relevant unit shall be subject to the provisions of Schedule 3 to this Act and—

(a)the appropriate Minister shall not approve the proposals for the amalgamation unless satisfied that all persons having an estate or interest in the relevant unit have given their written consent to the application of that Schedule to the relevant unit,

(b)the relevant unit shall be, or be the part of, the agricultural unit or units specified for the purposes of this subsection by the appropriate Minister in the document giving his approval to the proposals, and

(c)in the said Schedule 3 as applied by this subsection " relevant Exchequer payments " shall mean—

(i)the grant in respect of such expenditure as is specified for the purposes of this subsection in that document as being expenditure related to the relevant unit, and

(ii)such sum as the appropriate Minister may certify as the sum representing his administrative expenses (including an appropriate proportion of overhead expenses and other fixed or general expenses) incurred in connection with making the grant,

and " the relevant date " shall, for any grant and the related administrative expenses, be the date when the grant was paid.

(8)In the case of the payment of any grant under this section in connection with a boundary adjustment the appropriate Minister may, if he thinks fit, designate in the document giving his approval to the proposals any land appearing to him to benefit from the boundary adjustment as land which, after the payment of that grant, is to be a relevant unit subject to the provisions of Schedule 3 to this Act, and paragraphs (a) and (c) of the last foregoing subsection shall apply in relation to the boundary adjustment as they apply in relation to an amalgamation.

(9)The duration of a scheme under this section shall be a period not exceeding seven years, but that period may from time to time be extended by further schemes under this section for periods not exceeding seven years.

(10)A grant shall not be made under section 16 of the [1957 c. 57.] Agriculture Act 1957 (which relates to grants towards costs of amalgamation and is superseded by this section) in respect of a transaction proposed in an application made under that section after the coming into force of the first scheme made under this section, and so much of subsection (2) of the said section 16 as limits the time within which applications may be made under that section shall cease to have effect.

(11)The following enactments—

(a)section 6(c) of the [1946 c. 73.] Hill Farming Act 1946,

(b)section 5(3) of the [1959 c. 12.] Agriculture (Small Farmers) Act 1959, or

(c)section 2(3) of the [1964 c. 28.] Agriculture and Horticulture Act 1964,

(under which grant under those Acts may be recovered by the appropriate Minister if there is a failure to carry out proposals), and any provision to the like effect in regulations made under section 77(3) of the [1948 c. 45.] Agriculture (Scotland) Act 1948 or section 22(4) of the [1955 c. 21.] Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955, shall not apply where in the opinion of the appropriate Minister the carrying out of the proposals is, in consequence of the carrying out of proposals approved under this section, impracticable or to no purpose or unduly expensive.

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