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Omagh estate agent and land valuer, Bertie Pollock, has called upon the public to lobby their politicians and local representatives to do everything in their power to ensure the best deal possible, should current plans for the preferred A5 route go ahead.

Stating that three issues, in particular, should be of immediate concern to those who stand to be affected by the proposed route, Mr Pollock said the current economic crisis looked likely to affect the value of land when it came to making a claim for compensation. Said Mr Pollock: "When a farmer goes to make a claim for compensation, the value of the land will be assessed as it stands at that time, and from what we have been told, the period for compensation will be 2011-2012." "So whatever the land value is at that time is what they will get for their land, and considering we are going through a deep recession at the minute, and land prices are well back - as bad as I ever remember - I cannot see any big improvement on that in the near future. So for the people getting compensation for their vested land, it is going to be substantially less than two or three years ago."

Mr Pollock said it was his view that basing figures for compensation on the value of land in the midst of a recession was 'unfair', adding that figures should be based on an average of "the past four or five-year period." "We have to remember, these people have no choice here - their land is being taken from them - in an open market a willing seller has the option to say 'I'm not taking that price for my land', but in this case people can't, and the land is being sold at a time of deep world recession.

"I would call on politicians to do something about this because at the end of the day, this is being forced on land owners, it is not a voluntary sale - there is a big difference there."


Capital gains tax
Mr Pollock said another issue for politicians to consider was that of capital gains tax. "If anyone is selling a farm they know they are going to have to pay capital gains tax on it because they decided to sell the land themselves, but in this case, again they have been forced, so they shouldn't have to pay that," said Mr Pollock. "Of course it will be argued that land owners will have two years to reinvest the money they get for the land, so you won't lose anything to tax, but there is quite a good possibility that there will be no land suitable for a farmer to do this." "When land is forcefully vested, I don't think they should have to pay tax on it. Representatives should all be pushing to try and get concessions on this. I think it is something that needs to be looked at very seriously."

Highlighting the third issue requiring focus by political representatives, Mr Pollock said all minor junctions should remain open once work to the new road is complete. He said: "It is not clear yet, but there are indications that some minor public roads may be closed. That is going to push traffic on to other minor roads, people will have to use another road to get home, get to town, or wherever it is in the locality that they want to go. It will end up sending people on wild goose chases when it is not necessary. Again politicians should be pushing for all minor roads to remain open, whether that requires underpasses, overpasses, bridge, whatever, so be it."