Report by the Joint committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons on public sewers (contributions by frontagers) : together with the proceedings of the committee and minutes of evidence and speeches delivered by counsel.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. Joint Committee on Public Sewers
Date:
1936
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report by the Joint committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons on public sewers (contributions by frontagers) : together with the proceedings of the committee and minutes of evidence and speeches delivered by counsel. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    107/126 (page 79)
    20° Maiti, 1936.] Mr, are being laid are very costly roads, and their surfaces are made for various pur- poses, motor purposes, in particular, many of them, and the actual cost, to my mind, subject to the views of the Committee, is ruled out of the question. Therefore, you must have a notional cost. Mr. Tyldesley Jones.] Would not that ereate this difficulty, that you would simply have the contest which you want to avoid, ante-dated, before the Parlia- mentary Committee when you have no facts and are in the pure region of speculation. It would mean that you would have to find out the probable cost of unknown sewers before they are con- structed, to arrive at that figure. I think you would still get the contest before the Parliamentary Committee. Sir Henry Cautley.] I have not the least doubt that surveyors and other such people could give us it very quickly. Mr. Tyldesley Jones.| They zcnerally differ ! Witness.] I would not like to speak with certainty, but I think probably the local authorities of different areas would take very ‘different views as to what was the cost in their area of a standard sewer, a 9 in. sewer at what they re- garded as their standard depth. Captain Bourne. _ 18. Presumably evidence would be ‘available as to what was the average charge in any locality for putting sewers in a private street?—Yes, it would be available to the Committee considering the Bill. 14. Yes, to the Committee considering the Bill. Presumably it could be brought forward what actually was the cost?— Yes, that is what we contemplate. Captain Bourne.| Therefore, I think it ought not to be an insuperable diffi- culty to arrive at what might be the cost of this notional hypothetical sewer. Mr. Tyldesley Jones.| At that date. Captain Bourne.] Yes; it should not be an insuperable difficulty at the date when the Bill was in front of the Com- mittee. Mr. Tyldesley Jones.] Some would pay too much, and some. too little, because _it would be an average. Captain Bourne.] Whatever we do, I think that is bound to be the case. I ‘think: we are bound to take a rough and ready justice; some people will suffer and some will score. I do not think we “ean avoid that. [ Continued. Mr. Wrottesley.| It would only be comparatively a small percentage of error. Witness.| If it turned out that the cost of making this sewer was actually less than the figure fixed in the Bill, then clearly only the actual cost »ught to be paid. Mr. Wrottesley. 15. There ought not to be a profit?— No, there ought not to be a profit. Mr. Tyldesley Jones.] The honourable Member meant, in his question, the average in the particular locality? Captain Bourne.] Quite. It obviously was not intended. to be an average over the country. Mr. Tyldesley Jones.] That is what I thought. Captain Bouwrne.| If you are taking what I will call a hypothetical sewer to be laid in one of these public streets, for which the frontagers are to pay, I was suggesting that it ought not to be an insuperable difficulty to find out what would be the cost of laying a similar sewer in that locality. I was not sug- gesting the same figure for the whole country. Mr. Tyldesley Jones.| That is what I understood, but my clients were not quite sure just what the honourable Member meant. Paragraph 4 of the Memorandum deals with the question of frontage, but 1 think “possibly I need not take time over that. It is merely to indicate that it seemed to us extremely difficult to abandon the idea altogether of frontage. We know from experi- ence that the test of frontage has the great value of certainty, and from the owners’ point of view, it seems to us, in private street works transactions, very important that the prospective pur- chasers should know, with some reason- abla degree of certainty, what their liabilities are going to be. It may be that it is right to provide a special ground of appeal on the ground of lack of benefit, but I certainly would suggest that the primary apportionment ought to be on frontage. I am not sure that that would be denied by anybody, but it was mentioned at the last meeting of the Committee. I think some of para- graph 6 was read to the Committee this morning.