Public Works Act Advisory

Generally speaking, public works can’t be carried out without affecting private landowners. The Public Works Act 1981 (PWA) gives the government the ability to acquire land from private landowners for work such as expressways, schools and police stations. Advice around how to negotiate these kinds of situations if they arise for you is one of our specialities.

In recent history, the building of new roads and expressways is the most common kind of public works that we’ve given advice on. Sometimes the road is proposed to go right through a property, and sometimes it’s on the boundary. Either way, it can cause great disruption to a landowner’s plans for their plot. The PWA dictates that landowners are entitled to fair representation by a knowledgeable representative (eg. Land Matters) and that the cost of this representation will be covered by the government. Our advice? Get our advice.