THE BUILDER
a journal for the architect and constructor
WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED ** THE BRITISH ARCHITECT.
VOL. CXXXVII. No. 4525.
OCTOBER 25, 1929
THE POWERS OF WATER UNDERTAKINGS We may draw our readers’attention to the Report,
recently issued by the Ministry of Health, of the
Legislation Sub-Committee appointed by the Advisory Committee on Water and adopted by the
Advisory Committee. The Legislation Sub-Committee was appointed by the Advisory Committee in October, 1923, and their first Report dealt with the protection of underground water, but this Report is of even greater interest as it contains a review of the legislation relating to water, and most important suggestions for its amendment. As the Report points out the principal statute governing the conditions of water supply—The Waterworks Clauses Act, 1847— is more than eighty years old, and the amending Act, that of 1863, sixty-five years old, and the last half century has been conspicuous for the intensive development of efficient water supply throughout the country, and the meeting of new requirements and of changing conditions has rested with the initiative of the individual undertaker, and has been effected by local legislation, and the position of each undertaking has come to vary partly with the status of the undertakers, and partly with their resources and prosperity, and partly with their initiative, thus “ The Sub-Committee are convinced that the need for new general legislation is urgent, and they recommend that it should take two forms. The first essential is the enactment of a modernised Waterworks Clauses Bill for uniform incorporation by the undertakers* the second a general statute amending and equalising the procedure available to them in obtaining statutory powers and at the same time giving general application to provisions which it is felt should be uniformly operative.”
We are in thorough agreement with the views expressed by the sub-committee in the above passage, but we will confine ourselves to a point of the greatest importance to householders, be they owners or occupiers, to which we drew attention in an article entitled “ Liabilities of Householders,” in our issue of November 12, 1926, the liability imposed upon them in reference to communication pipes. In that article, which was based on facts that had come to our own knowledge, we showed the extremely difficult position the householder might be placed in. Numerous bodies are continually opening up the roads in connection with their undertakings, and we instanced the water company, the gas company, the local authority, and the Post Office, and any one of these may injure a communication pipe, but if a communication pipe is found in a defective condition it is the householder who under existing conditions remains primarily liable, and he is the person who can most easily and surely be rendered liable, and thus he is made the victim for the possible misdeeds of others, and perhaps we may be pardoned for quoting the recommendation we made in our former article. “ We may suggest that a general principle should be made to apply to all public Statutes governing such public undertakings as water and gas companies, a principle that should be compulsorily incorporated in every private Act. These undertakings have powers for their own profit of laying their mains down the public roads, but they cannot turn these mains to profit unless they lay communication pipes to the houses they intend to serve, and therefore their liability to maintain those mains should extend to the communication pipes so far as the public road or foot-path extends, leaving the private householder only liable for defects which occur upon his own premises.”
The Report at page 9 first states in general terms that the development of new conditions and new problems in water supply calls for a revised general code of clauses, to be applied as uniformly, as possible to every statutoi y water undertaker, and then at page 13 in relation to this question of communication pipes recommends (1) That the right to break up the highway shall vest solely in the undertakers ; (2) That the obligation to provide and maintain supply pipes in or under the highway should fall upon the undertakers ; and (3) That the expenses involved in their provision and main
tenance should be defrayed by the undertakers themselves and should not be directly recoverable from the consumer. In the Appendix A, which contains draft clauses to embody the recommendations, there is a definition of what is to be deemed a “ supply pipe.” It shall mean a pipe directly subject to water pressure from the mains of the undertakers, including the pipe between the main and the premises to which the water is supplied, and it is provided that the owner or the occupier of the dwelling-house or part of a dwelling-house “ shall lay that part of the supply pipe which is not in or under any street,” and although the word “ street ” appears not to be defined in any of the draft sections, there is a note to section 5 (b) that “ street is to be defined as including any private street or any land laid out as a street,” and by section 7, “so much of any supply pipe as is situated in or under any street, and as is at the date of the coming into effect of this Part of this Act connected with the mains of the undertakers shall from and after that date vest in and be deemed to be the property of the undertakers, and hy section 8 the undertakers shall at their own expense carry out necessary works of repair alteration or renewal of that part of any supply pipe which is in or under any street, and any works on their main incidental thereto.
Thus it appears that the recommendations of the sub-committee carry out the suggestion we made in our article of November 12,1926, to the letter and, as we pointed out in that article, apply the principle recognised in the Gas Works Clauses Act, 1871. The sub-committee in the Report state that it was suggested that the undertakers should be enabled to recover directly from the individual consumer all the expenses properly incurred by them in the execution of the proposed works including compensation for any damage resulting, but this suggestion was rejected as it would place the consumer in a worse position than he is at present, and the Report recommends that the expenditure should be met out of an increase in the charges, and on page 39 they indicate the procedure to be adopted to render this possible in the case of undertakings where maximum rates are prescribed, that is undertakings deriving their powers under special Acts or provisional orders. No difficulty arises in the case where the powers are derived under the Public Health Acts. We have emphasised this part of the Report, because it has always appeared to us most unjust that the consumer should be rendered liable for the communication pipes, and the Report adopts very much the same reasoning that we did ; thus it. points out that it is inequitable that each consumer should be under obligation to meet the expenses of repairing damagewhich is frequently due to the situation of the premises on°a traffic frequented highway, to peculiarities of road construction over which he has no control, or generally to circumstances which are not of his creation and not attributable to his negligence, and that the whole position is aggravated where the mains of the undertakers are set on one side of the street rendering it necessary for some consumers to carry the communication pipes right across the street, a fact which imposesunequal liability as between consumers. We sincerely trust that this recommendation will not be pigeon-holed but win be given legislative force at the earliest opportunity.
There are many other recommendations in the Report deserving notice. One recommendation of importance is that as there is often difficulty in practice for requisitions for a supply of water to be made under section 35 of the Waterworks Clauses Acts, 1847, whereby the owners or occupiers making requisition have to show that the aggregate water rates payable annually at the rates specified in the special Act shall not be less than one-tenth of the initial cost of providin ? and laying the pipes, the requisition may be made by the°local authority whether urban or rural. The required guarantee is also lowered from one-tenth to one-eighth part of the expenses.
The whole Report is deserving of careful consideration and we may revert to it.
a journal for the architect and constructor
WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED ** THE BRITISH ARCHITECT.
VOL. CXXXVII. No. 4525.
OCTOBER 25, 1929
THE POWERS OF WATER UNDERTAKINGS We may draw our readers’attention to the Report,
recently issued by the Ministry of Health, of the
Legislation Sub-Committee appointed by the Advisory Committee on Water and adopted by the
Advisory Committee. The Legislation Sub-Committee was appointed by the Advisory Committee in October, 1923, and their first Report dealt with the protection of underground water, but this Report is of even greater interest as it contains a review of the legislation relating to water, and most important suggestions for its amendment. As the Report points out the principal statute governing the conditions of water supply—The Waterworks Clauses Act, 1847— is more than eighty years old, and the amending Act, that of 1863, sixty-five years old, and the last half century has been conspicuous for the intensive development of efficient water supply throughout the country, and the meeting of new requirements and of changing conditions has rested with the initiative of the individual undertaker, and has been effected by local legislation, and the position of each undertaking has come to vary partly with the status of the undertakers, and partly with their resources and prosperity, and partly with their initiative, thus “ The Sub-Committee are convinced that the need for new general legislation is urgent, and they recommend that it should take two forms. The first essential is the enactment of a modernised Waterworks Clauses Bill for uniform incorporation by the undertakers* the second a general statute amending and equalising the procedure available to them in obtaining statutory powers and at the same time giving general application to provisions which it is felt should be uniformly operative.”
We are in thorough agreement with the views expressed by the sub-committee in the above passage, but we will confine ourselves to a point of the greatest importance to householders, be they owners or occupiers, to which we drew attention in an article entitled “ Liabilities of Householders,” in our issue of November 12, 1926, the liability imposed upon them in reference to communication pipes. In that article, which was based on facts that had come to our own knowledge, we showed the extremely difficult position the householder might be placed in. Numerous bodies are continually opening up the roads in connection with their undertakings, and we instanced the water company, the gas company, the local authority, and the Post Office, and any one of these may injure a communication pipe, but if a communication pipe is found in a defective condition it is the householder who under existing conditions remains primarily liable, and he is the person who can most easily and surely be rendered liable, and thus he is made the victim for the possible misdeeds of others, and perhaps we may be pardoned for quoting the recommendation we made in our former article. “ We may suggest that a general principle should be made to apply to all public Statutes governing such public undertakings as water and gas companies, a principle that should be compulsorily incorporated in every private Act. These undertakings have powers for their own profit of laying their mains down the public roads, but they cannot turn these mains to profit unless they lay communication pipes to the houses they intend to serve, and therefore their liability to maintain those mains should extend to the communication pipes so far as the public road or foot-path extends, leaving the private householder only liable for defects which occur upon his own premises.”
The Report at page 9 first states in general terms that the development of new conditions and new problems in water supply calls for a revised general code of clauses, to be applied as uniformly, as possible to every statutoi y water undertaker, and then at page 13 in relation to this question of communication pipes recommends (1) That the right to break up the highway shall vest solely in the undertakers ; (2) That the obligation to provide and maintain supply pipes in or under the highway should fall upon the undertakers ; and (3) That the expenses involved in their provision and main
tenance should be defrayed by the undertakers themselves and should not be directly recoverable from the consumer. In the Appendix A, which contains draft clauses to embody the recommendations, there is a definition of what is to be deemed a “ supply pipe.” It shall mean a pipe directly subject to water pressure from the mains of the undertakers, including the pipe between the main and the premises to which the water is supplied, and it is provided that the owner or the occupier of the dwelling-house or part of a dwelling-house “ shall lay that part of the supply pipe which is not in or under any street,” and although the word “ street ” appears not to be defined in any of the draft sections, there is a note to section 5 (b) that “ street is to be defined as including any private street or any land laid out as a street,” and by section 7, “so much of any supply pipe as is situated in or under any street, and as is at the date of the coming into effect of this Part of this Act connected with the mains of the undertakers shall from and after that date vest in and be deemed to be the property of the undertakers, and hy section 8 the undertakers shall at their own expense carry out necessary works of repair alteration or renewal of that part of any supply pipe which is in or under any street, and any works on their main incidental thereto.
Thus it appears that the recommendations of the sub-committee carry out the suggestion we made in our article of November 12,1926, to the letter and, as we pointed out in that article, apply the principle recognised in the Gas Works Clauses Act, 1871. The sub-committee in the Report state that it was suggested that the undertakers should be enabled to recover directly from the individual consumer all the expenses properly incurred by them in the execution of the proposed works including compensation for any damage resulting, but this suggestion was rejected as it would place the consumer in a worse position than he is at present, and the Report recommends that the expenditure should be met out of an increase in the charges, and on page 39 they indicate the procedure to be adopted to render this possible in the case of undertakings where maximum rates are prescribed, that is undertakings deriving their powers under special Acts or provisional orders. No difficulty arises in the case where the powers are derived under the Public Health Acts. We have emphasised this part of the Report, because it has always appeared to us most unjust that the consumer should be rendered liable for the communication pipes, and the Report adopts very much the same reasoning that we did ; thus it. points out that it is inequitable that each consumer should be under obligation to meet the expenses of repairing damagewhich is frequently due to the situation of the premises on°a traffic frequented highway, to peculiarities of road construction over which he has no control, or generally to circumstances which are not of his creation and not attributable to his negligence, and that the whole position is aggravated where the mains of the undertakers are set on one side of the street rendering it necessary for some consumers to carry the communication pipes right across the street, a fact which imposesunequal liability as between consumers. We sincerely trust that this recommendation will not be pigeon-holed but win be given legislative force at the earliest opportunity.
There are many other recommendations in the Report deserving notice. One recommendation of importance is that as there is often difficulty in practice for requisitions for a supply of water to be made under section 35 of the Waterworks Clauses Acts, 1847, whereby the owners or occupiers making requisition have to show that the aggregate water rates payable annually at the rates specified in the special Act shall not be less than one-tenth of the initial cost of providin ? and laying the pipes, the requisition may be made by the°local authority whether urban or rural. The required guarantee is also lowered from one-tenth to one-eighth part of the expenses.
The whole Report is deserving of careful consideration and we may revert to it.