IIRC there was a test case in the late 1960s/early 70s regarding the sell off of an RAF station which had been taken from its owners before the war. It was somewhere like Yatesbury or Wootton Bassett.
It was ruled that the original owners had the right to purchase back their property and at the price that was paid for it.
Certainly, in 1974 the Upwood airfield went back to its owners and the runways were torn up for hardcore (rubble that is not smutty magazines). The owner is said to have claimed that the cost of the buy back was more than offset by the price of the hardcore.
Old Duffer