Water in UK Law

I conclude that every abstraction of water by the plaintiff from Mill Pond after 30th June 1965 was illegal. It follows, in my judgment, that the plaintiff cannot rely on any abstraction of water carried out after 30th June 1965 in order to establish an easement by prescription. The court will not recognise an easement established by illegal activity. The 1963 Act, however, does not contain any provision which destroys an easement already acquired.

The expression is defined in section 189 of the Act to refer to a sewer for the time being vested in a sewerage undertaker, "whether vested in that undertaker by virtue of a scheme under Schedule 2 or 5 to this Act or under section 153 above or otherwise". A similar point can be made with regard to the definition of "public sewer" in the Water Industry Act 1991, to which there is further reference below.

Indeed, I would include the simple preposition "for" as one of the possible meanings. Thus, even if perchance the ultimately correct analysis of the agreement were to be found not in agency, but, for instance, in the concept of assignment (if, indeed, the statutory claims of water undertakers on their customers can be assigned), it would seem to me that the arrangements still amounted to a collection and recovery of water charges "on behalf of" the water undertaker.