Volume 3

A treatise on hygiene and public health / edited by Thomas Stevenson and Shirley F. Murphy.

Date:
1892-1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on hygiene and public health / edited by Thomas Stevenson and Shirley F. Murphy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Power to purchase sewers (Sec. 14). Powers of taking sewers through lands (Sec. 16). Compensation for damage to be ascer- tained by arbitration (Sec. 308). Construction of sewers in mining districts (Public Health Act, 1875 (Support of Sewers) Amendment Act, 1883). The section moreover provides 1 that sewers within the district of a sanitary authority which have been or which may hereafter be con- structed by or transferred to some other sanitary authority, or by or to a Sewerage Board 2 or other authority empowered under any Act of Parliament to construct sewers shall (subject to any agreement to the contrary) vest in and be under the control of the authority who con- structed them or to whom they have been transferred. Any sanitary authority may purchase or otherwise acquire from any person any sewer, or any right of making 3 or of user or other right in or respecting a sewer (with or without any buildings, works, materials, or things belonging thereto) within their district; and any person may sell or grant to such authority any such sewer right or property belonging to him. But any person who previously to the purchase of a sewer by such authority has acquired a right to use such sewer will be entitled to use the same, or any sewer substituted in lieu thereof, to the same extent as he would or might have done if the purchase had not been made. Every sanitary authority has the widest powers 4 to take its sewers through any part of its own district, and subject to certain reasonable restrictions, to which reference will be made below, and so far as such powers are required for the disposal of sewage through any other district. The sewers may be carried ' through, across, or under any turnpike road, or any street or place laid out or intended for a street, or under any cellar or vault which may be under the pavement or carriage way of any street, and, after giving reasonable notice in writing to the owner or occupier (if on the report of the surveyor it appears necessary), into, through, or under any land whatsoever. For the purpose of exercising these powers it will not be necessary that the sanitary authority should purchase the lands through which the sewers are taken, but full compensation must be made for any damage done, and any dispute as to the fact of damage or amount of compensation must be settled by arbitration in manner prescribed by the Act, unless the compensation claimed does not exceed 201., in which case it may, at the option of either party, be ascertained by and recovered before a court of summary jurisdiction. In mining districts these provisions were found to amount practi- cally to a prohibition against the construction of sewers, in consequence of the decision re Corporation of Dudley (L. B. 8 Q. B. D. 86 (C. A.), 51 L. J. Q. B. 121, 45 L. T. (N.S.) 733), that a landowner was bound to preserve to the sewer subjacent support, and that he was entitled to be compensated immediately for this obligation. This result has, how- ever, now been prevented by the Public Health Act, 1875 (Support of Sewers), Amendment Act, 1883, which has provided that a sanitary authority shall not, by reason only of anything in the Act or order authorising the construction of any sanitary5 work, be deemed to have acquired or to be entitled to, or to be bound to acquire, or make com- 1 This provision is necessary, as the sewers of one sanitary authority not un- frequently pass through the district of another authority. See pp. 19 and 20. 2 As to the constitution of joint sewerage boards, see pp. 217 to 219. 3 As regards the right of sanitary authorities to carry sewers both within and without their districts, see Section 16, below. 4 These powers are subject to the savings in Section 327 of the Act, so far as regards property belonging to the Admiralty or War Office and the bridge, canal, dock, harbour, and other authorities therein mentioned. 5 ' Sanitary work,' as defined by the Act, includes works of sewerage, drainage, sewage disposal, and water supply.