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.
118/126 (page 90)
![20° Mazi, 1936. ] [ Continued. found in the Hertfordshire County Council Bill of last year) some perfectly clear exclusion of the same person being burdened twice in respect of the same piece of betterment. I have dealt with the suggestion that they should both be self-contained clauses, There is a further matter, which is this: I should have thought that if any clauses of this type are going to be passed there ought to be a provision that all previous agreements are protected. We know that it 1s quite common for Corporations to go and make agreements with the land- owners, and I should have thought it was very desirable (we have been told about teem, and we think it is most desirable) that either of these clauses should be accompanied by some perfectly clear proviso protecting all agreements which happen to have been made with landowners, because it may very well be that the effect of this law, if you were to pass either of these clauses in the sort of form in which they are put before you, would, especially having regard to questions of apportionment, lead to burdens being inflicted on landowners who had already made special arrange- ments with the local authorities. Mr. Tyldesley Jones.|] We should be most desirous that existing agreements should not be got rid of; we want to pre- serve them. Mr, Wrottesley.] Or agreements with local authorities’ predecessors. Lately there has been a great reshuffle of local authorities. Mr. Tyldesley Jones.| Every agreement which binds an authority to-day ought to be continued. Mr. Wrottesley.] I do not find any- thing making that clear. Mr. Tyldesley Jones.] We will not take up time about that. If it is necessary we will not object to that for a moment, but I see nothing which will invalidate exist- ing agreements. and I think there is a danger, especially when you get into the region of an appor- tionment being made between frontagers and you have to go before Justices who have to administer this class of docu- ment. If they had to do that, I do not think they would spend much time on considering whether there had _ been anterior agreements, There are difficulties which may occur, although they are not likely to be any- thing like so frequent, but there are such things, I suppose, as houses.-which may be found, comparatively speaking, in the fields, past which a sewer may be run, and obviously that class of case ought to be protected as regards this class of sewer, as against a sewer which may run in a main road, Again there arises this point. If you are: going to deal with it along the line of frontage, I should have thought it must all be brought back to a standard sewer. If you are going to deal with it on lines of benefit, you do not mind about the size of sewer, I agree, because, if you succeed in apportioning a sewer of any calibre doing a job for an area over the whole area, in the end there is perhaps not much to complain of if everybody contributes something towards the total with, but directly you leave that principle, which is an extraordinarily difficult-one to enforce, I agree and pass to this one of frontage, you not only get into the difficulties I have indicated by that simple diagram showing what injustice may be effected, but you get into this further difficulty, that 50, or it may be 75 per cent, of the persons who are really going to be benefited by these trunk sewers, are never going to have anything levied on them at all. That is the difficulty you are in. You get back to this, that a sewer laid for trunk purposes or, in effect, an over- head work, rather like a headquarters work, is nevertheless going to be charged in the end upon persons who happen to have houses beside the road which has been made over a sewer made 10 years ago. Sir Henry Cautley.] Does this clause apply to every wayleave given for a sewer in the borough of Romford? Mr. Wrottesley. I gather it does. Sir Henry Cautley.] Every wayleave? Mr. Wrottesley. Yes, it is general. It has been applying since 1931; it is the oddest feature. I cannot follow how this can possibly lead to justice in any case where the enhancement is less than the value of the wayleave. If the en- hancement is more than the value of the wayleave one could have said ‘‘ You shall pay the additional enhancement,’’ but it is the rest of the cost. In my submission it is a hopeless confusion, in the case of trunk sewers, which you deal with along the lines of benefit in the Town Planning Act, to turn aside and try to use the frontage machinery ; it is, in my submission, only leading](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32186022_0118.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
