Consultants are being engaged to provide a council with advice about the use of compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) to secure land for development in Long Stratton, including the long-awaited bypass.

South Norfolk Council has hired property consultants Bruton Knowles to help it understand the likely costs, advantages and disadvantages of using CPOs to secure the combinations of land needed to deliver the required growth.

The council is drawing up an area action plan to look at how and where the 1,800 homes needed would be allocated in and around the village.

As part of these plans, the bypass funded by housing development is being touted as the only realistic way of addressing the long-running congestion problems on the A140 between Diss and Norwich.

Council leader John Fuller told a meeting of the council's cabinet on Monday the CPOs were a way for the council to secure the land it needed, without running the risk of landowners 'ransoming' each other.

He said: 'I think it is important that we progress to CPO and it seems to have had a remarkable galvanising effect.'

CPOs allow councils to force landowners to sell up if their property obstructs a regeneration project or it is for the 'greater public good'.

The risk of ransoming arises from one landowner owning the main site for the new homes and another landowner possessing the rights of way from that site.

The council would have to demonstrate that it would be in the public interest for the order to be granted, while the landowners would be paid the market value of the land, along with possible extra payments.

The work by Bruton Knowles is likely to be completed by late June, giving the council sufficient time to consider the outcomes before reporting to the cabinet in July.

Do you agree with the use of CPOs to secure land? Email dominic.bareham@archant.co.uk.