The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-01-06 00:00:00

THE CORPORATION OF LIVERPOOL AND

THE BIRKENHEAD DOCK COMMISSION-
ERS. - IMPORTANT ENQUIRY PRELIMI-
NARY TO ARBITRATION.

The arbitrators appointed by the two bodies named, to
decide upon the value of the reversionary interest of the
Corporation in the land held by them, on seventy-five
years' lease, on the south side of Wallasey-pool, met on
Tuesday last, at the Adelphi Hotel. Mr. Sergeant
Byles was the arbitrator appointed by the Corporation,
and Samuel Martin, Esq., Q.C., by the Dock Company.
The Solicitor-General, Mr. Fitzroy Kelly, and Mr.
Crompton, appeared as counsel for the Corporation, and
J. H. Lloyd, Esq., for the Dock Company. The two
arbitrators, accompanied by the Town-Clerk, Mr.
M`Gre,gor Laird, and the Corporation surveyors, crossed
over to Seacombe in the morning, and returned by Wood-
side, after taking a cursory survey of the land, as was
agreed upon by the parties. At one o'clock the enquiry
was resumed. The Solicitor-General opened his case in
a speech which occupied two hours. An adjournment
then took place until ten o'clock on Wednesday morning,
and on that day the Corporation examined their wit-
nesses.

Mr. HODGSON, clerk of the peace for Chester, gave
evidence as to the plans, and produced sections of a dock
and other works proposed to be constt ucted on the south
side of Wallasey-pool, which had been duly deposited,
according to the standing orders of the House of Com-
mons.

Mr. Jorisr STEWART, architect and surveyor, of Liver-
pool, was then examined by the Attorney-General. He
said he had been thirty years in business, and that during
that time great improvements had arisen in landed pro-
perty, particularly at the sides of the river. He had ex-
amined the plans of the Birkenhead Commissioners' pro-
posed works, according to the several acts, and he now
explained what they were, in docks, sea-walls, &c. Such
works would not have been undertaken except with a
view of Birkenhead becoming a great commercial town.
The intended great dock would be of very little use un-
less the land on the side of it were converted to mercan-
tile purposes. The land belonged to the Corporation of
Liverpool, except the part between high and low water,
which belonged to the Crown. The two properties, to be
useful as an investment, mustlbe united. He had been
employed by the Woods and Forests to value the Crown
portion of the land, and had valued it at £57,000. He
would consider it advisable for persons having a seventy-
five years lease of the other land, to purchase the Crown
land for that sum, so as to make an uninterrupted pro-
perty. Except for commercial purposes, the Corporation
land was not worth £lBO,OOO or £200,000, or whatever it
might be. A railway was to terminate upon it, which
would give it additional value. It was suitable for docks
and quays, &c., only, and would be worth little without
them. Without them it might not be worth ss. or 6s. a
yard. For docks, it would be advisable to lay out the
money upon it according to the plan produced. The
south side of the pool was preferable to the other, for
there was there the nucleus of a great place, which the
other side had not. It was on the Birkenhead side which
had extended largely and wonderfully, giving great addi-
tional value to property on that side. The construction
of the proposed docks and warehouses would occupy about
five years, and if they were completed, the annual value
would, he estimated, be £153,287, and the fee simple, in
possession, at £2,483,262, at eighteen years purchase.
After deducting 10 per cent. for repairs and maintenance,
the net clear annual value would be £137,957. He esti-
mated the land at 355. per square yard, including the
docks and warehouses upon it. After giving his estimates
for warehouses, counting-house, sheds, docks, walls, &c.,
draining, engineering, interest, &c., separately, the wit-
ness gave the following items as a total :

Works
Land ..
Interest

£1,093,000
949,900
294,855

£2,336,755
This would be about the cost, and in five or six years
the property would be worth more if a revenue could be
shown to anything like that amount. A good warehouse
in Liverpool produced, of annual rent, a guinea to 25s a
yard, for every yard of land they stood upon, and if they
were close upon the dock sides they would produce more.
He put 355. throughout for land per yard, and £8 lOs for
building. This included the outlets and approaches of
the warehouses. The actual land on which they stood he
would estimate at £5 or £6—say £5 10s. for the land,
and £8 10s. for the buildings, so that £l4 would be the
fee-simple. He then went into calculations relative
to warehouse property in Liverpool, concluding by
valuing the fee-simple of the land there at £l7 10s.
per yard, and these not close upon the docks, which those
of Birkenhead would have the advantage of in cartage,
&c. The Birkenhead docks, warehouses, &c., would in
6 or 6 years be north between two and three millions
sterling. and from his experience he thought it would in-
crease in a great ratio in 40 or 50 years. In Liverpool
land on the water side has greatly increased, in some in-
stances ten or fifteen fold.

In cross-examination, witness admitted that he con-
sidered property in Liverpool more important and value-
able than in Birkenhead. Liverpool was a fact ; Birken-
head a contingency. His calculation made the return 6
or 7 per cent. upon the project. The Trustees of the
Liverpool Docks purchased the Harrington Docks two
years ago, at 325. a yard, and about £50,000 had then
been expended in forming part of a dock wall. The slob
and shore land, at the North Shore, cost them less than
£1 in fee-simple. An outlay of upwards of £1,000,000
would be required to call out the value of the land at
Birkenhead as it now was. If the money could not be
raised for the completion of the project the land would
let, near the water, for trades requiring water frontage,
but not for much One shilling a yard might be the
minimum. At Wallasey Pool, 3U years ago, the land
would not have let for pasturage for more than ten shillings
an acre. Though Birkenhead town had increased, the
pool was not a place for building houses upon. The
crown land would have to be made, and if it were an-
cicsed between the sea-wall and the corporation land, it
would reduce the latter to very little value. In this point
of view the crown land was as valueless as the other, if a
power was had to interpose the crown land between the
water and the corporation land. Either, alone, are of
little value, but put together they are valuable. The
crown land (86,700 yards,) he valued on an average at
12s in cash for the fee-simple. He considered £7OOO
the relative value of the reversion or three per cent. upon
£37,000 which would be £1,7101a-year, and he took 4 years'
purchase upon that as a return. (Much was here gone
into relative to the manner of striking the reversion.) He
reckoned a 16 years' purchase for a lease of 75 years, and
the interest an equivalent of 6 per cent. to the lessee.
On this plan the corporation proceeded. The formation
of Docks at Birkenhead was discussed in Liverpool and
through the papers, but little in the council. Many years
ago there was a talk of a ship canal through Wallasey
Pool. Plans were made for it to the Dee. At that time
the Corporation purchased the land from Tobin, Laird,
and others. Some of it cost 18s and some 30i; but he
did not know the average. He believed the land was pur-
chased in order to stop the project. He remembered the
sales of land at Wallasey made by the corporation. It was
said in the council that it was well sold. 1 would not
have parted with it, as I thought something was going on
which would make the Pool valuable. Others thought
so too. The Pool would have been a valuable adjunct to
Liverpool whether Birkenhead had risen or not. If
made into a floating dock it would be valuable to Liver-
pool, by receiving vessels from the overcrowded docks.
The witness here explained a number of transactions in
hand which he was agent for, for the Earl of Derby. He
had sold 5000 yards of land on both sides of Great Howard-
street, for 30s. a yard in fee simple. The value of a re-
version depended on no abstract value of land, but on the
probability of what it would be when buildings covered it.
On re-examination, Mr. Stewart said he believed the
Crown land would be sold to the Birkenhead Commis-
sioners for the sum he had valued it at—.£57.000. He
considered the lessees would be amply indemnified in the
73 years after erecting all the docks and buildings. The
greater part of the witness's evidence afterwards given
was in explanation of the principle he adopted in regard
to reversionary interests.

Mr. WM. TITE, surveyor of London, said he thought
the Birkenhead Commissioners would be justified, and
act wisely in laying out the amount stated on the docks
and warehouses, as it would bring them into successful
competition with the Liverpool docks. He approved of
Mr. Stewart'aprinciple of reversion. Eighteen years pur-
chase of such property war, be thought, moderate.
Mr. JOIIN NN, EIGHTMAN, architect and surveyor of
Liverpool, examined.— His evidence was much to the
same effect as Mr. Stewart's, as to the rising value of the
land at the Pool, if laid out for mercantile purposes ac-
cording to the plans. It was desirable in a lessee of the
corporation land to purchase the lease for 73 years only,
of the crown land a ijoining, though at the end of that
time it would pass from him. (In questioning this wit-
ness and Mr. Stewart on other points, the interrogator
always put the supposition that the Dock Company's
Act had never passed.) If the property were so converted
as intended, and its value should be £2,400,000, at the
end of five years, it would be much more valuable at the
end of 73 years. The fair value of the reversion to the
Corporation was what at three per cent. would make up
the entire value at the end of the term.

Mr. JOHN H ARTLEY, assistant surveyor of the Liver-
pool and Hull Docks, was next called. He handed in a
detailed estimate. In reply to Mr. Lloyd he said he es-
timated the cost of the sea-wall along the margin of the
pool and the others, at £3O per running yard. A wall
bounding the property at lease, and not built so strong as
a river wall, would cost £l3 a yard, and satisfy the con-
servators. The proportion of frontage to the depth back-
wards of the Harrington Docks land was more than two-
thirds.

Mr. RICHARD EARLE, agent to the Earl of Derby,
spoke to the vast increase in the value of his lordship's
property contiguous to the new North Docks, and the
quantity of property built on 75 years' leases there and
over the town. In rising neighbourhoods there was no-
thing so valuable as reversions. He thought 3 per cent.,
as required by the corporation, the proper sum, at the
end of 75 years.
Mr. W. S. SHERWOOD attended for Mr. Leigh, a large
proprietor of Liverpool. Be concurred with the other
witnesses as to the rise in the value of property in the
contiguity of commercial improvements. He adduced
instances in Mr. Leigh's property. The operations in Bir-
kenhead would increase the value of property here : it
would give an impetus to this side. "'There was nothing
like bringing people out a little."—The Solicitor-General
here remarked, that Birkenhead would no more injure
Liverpool, than the Surrey side injured London.
Mr. FRANKLIN, the corporation surveyor, said the
part of the Birkenhead corporation property let on lease
to Mr. Cole, was formerly let for £1 an acre—at least
about 53 acres of it. That part was sold for 73 years, on
lease, at £l2OO an acre. This he certainly considered a
good bargain, as they bad only paid £1 an acre.

. . This closed the case for the corporation, and the inquiry
was adjourned.