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
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.
109/126 (page 81)
![20° Mati, 1936.] Mr, Mr. Tyldesley Jones.] I agree it is not very happy. Sir Henry Cautley. 23. (To the Witness): I gather your view is that of development in the Town Planning Act?—TI think, Sir Henry, that but I am not at all sure that there might not be a much simpler phrase in terms simply of development for building purposes. 24. The words are: ‘‘ development in relation to any land includes any building operations or re-building operations or any use of the land or any buildings thereon for a purpose ’’?—I think that is rather what I contemplate, but I doubt whether it would be necessary to have that very elaborate proviso about change of user. 25. That is to exempt agricultural land ? —It is not very material here, is it? Captain Bourne. 26. Is not your difficulty on that user, that you have a piece of land which has been used for agricultural land up to a certain point. It is then bought by the local tennis club; it is laid out as tennis courts and there is a change of user, an obvious change of user, but at the moment it is not developed for building, so there is no particular reason why it should pay towards a sewer which is of no use to it at that moment. The fact that the sewer is there does not make auy worse or better tennis courts. If it is subsequently sold to be built on, I agree the sewer does make a difference to it, but it is of no particular use for the purpose for which the land is used at the moment. Surely there is a danger in using the word ‘‘ user ’’ unless we put in a frightfully complicated clause ex- empting everything a human being can think of, or we shéuld bring in people like that. Is not that the trouble with the town planning clause ?—Are you think- ing now of a piece of land which belongs to a tennis club at the date of the Royal Assent—at the crucial date? 27.1 am thinking of something that is extraordinarily common in my own con- stituency. You have a piece of com- pletely undeveloped land lying alongside a main road or, shall I say, a public road, somewhere on the outskirts. It is bought by a college and turned into a cricket field; the college has no war- ticular interest in a sewer. The fact that it has a sewer along the main road does [ Continued. not make that piece of land the slightést degree more valuable for the purpose for which it is used?—If I may say so, J Ihave not the least doubt that the pavi- hon would be joined up to the sewer. : 28. It may be that the frontage would be very large, but the very thing that joins the sewer is negligible compared with what might have to be paid by the club in regard to its site. If that land is re-sold and houses are put on it, I admit the sewer puts up the value of it enormously. So long as it is kept for playing games the sewer really makes no practical difference to its value. The change of user might bring in land which IT am perfectly clear we do not want brought in?—Take first of all the case of the cricket ground which is a cricket ground at the date of the Royal Assent; that would be technically, no doubt, de- veloped land. 29. Yes, it is.—There, must not one rely on this additional power which the Local Acts give to appeal on the ground of lack of benefit? Captain Bourne.| I do not know whether it is reasonable to put on all these people the expense of going to an Appeal on a thing which I think any reasonable person would agree that they really ought not to pay for. Why shouid they have all the expense of going to appeal? It seems to me we ought to draft a clause so as to bring any form of litigation of this sort that may arise under it down to a minimum. We do not want to say ‘‘ you can appeal’’. The Local Authority really has no option in this clause except to put the assess- ment on, and then it means that the person who is aggrieved has to go and appeal to the Court. Both the Court and the Local Authority may think the appeal is quite reasonable, but why should you put the expense on the person? Surely we ought to try and see that the only cases which go to litigation are those where there is really a genuine thing to litigate about, and is it not a question as to whether on this we ought to cut that down to a minimum in our legislation ? Chairman.] What we want to do is to make the people who use the sewer pay for it, and therefore it is based on houses, not upon the actual ground which is used for a cricket field and a pavilion, because a pavilion uses a sewer very little indeed, if at all, and a cricket field would not use it at all. A house](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32186022_0109.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
