Sewage in UK Law

"Upon trade premises one would expect there to be a source of effluent that is not related to the trading or industrial processes carried on there. The establishment will have its domestic side as well as its truly business side. The words 'wholly or in part produced in the course of any trade' are almost wide enough to include anything which comes from the premises used by people working there. 'In the course of is a phrase often considered by lawyers and has been shown to have a wide embrace.

However, to my mind there is an important distinction between the present case and Lingke. For the moment, I set to one side the claims based on the blocking of the pipe and I limit my consideration to the claim based on the refusal to permit connection. In Lingke the alternative cause of action referred to was a free-standing cause of action in nuisance which was in no sense dependent on any provision of the statute.

My Lords, to prevent misconception I will add that no doubt there are circumstances in which the bed and banks of what was once a natural stream might prior to the Act of 1875 have become substantially nothing but a channel for sewage. The case of Falconar v. South Shields Corporation (shortly reported in II Times L.R. 223) can only be explained as a decision of the Court of Appeal in that sense and there are other authorities supporting the same proposition.