Valuation Office Agency
1. Background
The land values to be used for the purposes of contractors basis valuations have been assessed by the VOAs Property Services team.
The majority follow a published report for DCLG, compiled by Property Services, with additional work undertaken on land categories and regions that did not form part of that exercise, for example Wales. There is however one significant exception concerning residential values, see 2.4 below.
The valuation date of the DCLG report of 1st March 2015 is considered sufficiently close to the R2017 AVD for the data to be relevant.
2. Categories, regions and other detail
2.1 Categories
The attached spreadsheet (appendix 1) containing the data is self-explanatory, but in summary there are 6 categories of land including:
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Residential
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Industrial
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Amenity
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Car Parking
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Agricultural
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Commercial (i.e. offices), split into edge of town/city and out of town/city business park localities.
2.2 Regions
The categories of land are broken down regionally and in some cases (eg industrial) to Billing Authority (BA) level, see spreadsheet for more details. There are 6 distinct regions in London identified, with North and South separated by the River Thames. Tab 1 on the spreadsheet provides a look-up table for determining which BA falls into which region.
Residential values for a particular BA are based on a typically average town or city within that BA, see tab 2 for details.
Regional industrial values represent a valuation for each region, as opposed to a straight average of all the BA values.
High value airport locations have been singularly identified and valued, see tab 3 for more details.
Tab 4 provides details of extremes of values in some of the commercial category localities.
2.3 Assumed Size of Take and Density
Each value is based on a one hectare take of average density, in an average location within the relevant BA/region, with no abnormal development costs:
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For those BAs and regions outside London, the hypothetical scheme is for a development of 35 two storey dwellings with a total floor area of 3,150 square metres.
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For BAs and regions within London, the hypothetical scheme is for a multi storey development of 269 flats with a net sales area of 19,722 square metres.
This is largely considered sufficient for rating purposes, but valuer judgement may need to be exercised for exceptional densitys or quantum of land take as compared to the above.
2.4 Residential value factors
The figures shown on the spreadsheet assume that planning consent is in place and that the consent fully complies with affordable housing requirements. Note that the percentage of affordable housing required (and the tenure mix) impacts on the concluded land value. This can result in BA districts with similar base values having significantly different land values where one has a higher affordable housing requirement. It can also create apparent anomalies, for example where apparently more valuable BAs have lower land values due to their specific, possibly more onerous, planning policies in this respect.
Rating is concerned with market value which means it is appropriate to reflect any factors that affect this; affordable housing planning policies being one such factor. In this respect the residential values shown on the spreadsheet represent a departure from the DCLG published data which assumes non-compliance with affordable housing policies.
2.5 Using the data
Valuations on a price/ha basis may be taken straight from the spreadsheet.
For all other contractors basis valuations based on a percentage of adjusted replacement cost, the level of percentage adopted will have been calculated by the VOAs National Specialist Unit, informed by the data on the spreadsheet. Please consult the relevant Practice Note for the class in question for confirmation of which percentage to apply.
It is emphasised that these values are indicative and should not detract from valuer judgement in specific instances, for example quantum. The same applies to the land value categories applicable to the various property classes, these columns on the spreadsheet are also meant to be indicative, not prescriptive.