Bridlington Relay Ltd v Yorkshire Electricity Board
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Date | 1965 |
| Court | Chancery Division |
Nuisance - Electrical - Interference with television reception - Whether television reception ordinary use of land - Whether interference actionable by landowner - Business of television relay exceptionally sensitive to interference - Whether interference with reception actionable. - Injunction - Nuisance - Quia timet action - Nuisance not proved - Whether proper course to grant injunction with suspended operation.
In 1962 the plaintiff company, who carried on a business of providing a relay system of sound and television broadcasts, erected a mast on its own land for the purpose. The mast came into use in December, 1962. In November, 1963, the defendant, the local electricity board, commenced to erect an overhead power line, situating two of its pylons within 250 yards of the mast. On a quia timet action by the plaintiff for an injunction to restrain the defendant from so operating its power line as to interfere with the reception of radio and television transmission at the mast:—
Held (1) that on the evidence the interference suffered by the plaintiff was due to remediable defects in the defendant's power line which the defendant had not had an opportunity to remedy by reason of its undertaking not to re-energise the line until trial of the action, and that since the defendant was willing to make every effort to suppress the interference from its power line, it would be wrong in quia timet proceedings to grant an injunction to compel the defendant to do so.
(2) That where on the facts no nuisance had been shown to exist, it was not a proper course to grant an injunction and suspend its operation for a suitable period.
(3) Alternatively, on the footing that the defects were irremediable and that the plaintiff had established that its business was in fact damaged, the degree of immunity from electrical interference to which the plaintiff was entitled would not exceed that of the ordinary domestic viewer, as an ordinary person entitled to the ordinary enjoyment of his property when used in the ordinary way, and would not extend to the exceptional degree of immunity which the evidence showed this particular business required.
(4) That, applying that test, interference with a recreational amenity, such as television viewing, would not normally constitute a sufficient interference with the ordinary beneficial enjoyment as to amount to a legal nuisance though there might be exceptional cases, but that this case of occasional, even if recurrent and severe electrical interference affecting only one of the available programmes of television broadcasts, was not such an exception.
Per curiam. The plaintiff could not be said to be without remedy since Part II of the
ACTION.
The following statement of facts is taken from the judgment of Buckley J. The plaintiff company, Bridlington Relay Ltd., carried on a business of providing a relay system of broadcasting to residents in Bridlington in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Until 1962 only a radio relay service was available but on March 1, 1962, the plaintiff obtained planning permission from the Bridlington corporation for the erection on a small piece of land owned by the plaintiff near Pinfold Lane, to the north of the town, of an aerial tower of 164 feet high and a small single-storey brick building at its foot. The building and tower in question were erected and brought into use in the middle of December, 1962. Aerials were attached to the top of the aerial tower and thereafter the plaintiff was able to relay television programmes broadcast by the B.B.C. and the Independent Television Authority.
The B.B.C. television transmitter nearest to Bridlington was that at Holme Moss. But Bridlington lay some 10 miles or more to the north-east of the area in which reception from that transmitter could be regarded as reliably satisfactory. In fact, it lay not far from the outer edge of a belt surrounding that area in which considerable fading of the transmitted pictures was to be expected.
The Independent Television Authority transmitter nearest to Bridlington was at Emley Moor. Again, Bridlington lay outside and to the east of the area in which reception from that transmitter could be regarded as satisfactory. Bridlington was even outside what the I.T.A. regarded as the fringe area far Emley Moor transmissions. The standard of reception available to the ordinary domestic viewer using his own aerial in Bridlington was consequently indifferent.
This made Bridlington an attractive field for a relay service. By reason of the height of its aerial mast and the directional character of the aerials employed upon it the plaintiff was able to obtain a much stronger signal than could be obtained on an ordinary domestic aerial erected on the roof of a house. The evidence established that the signal strength of the former was 100 times the signal strength of the latter. Not only did this obviate, or tend to obviate, the fading experienced by users of ordinary domestic aerials: it also enabled the wanted signals received at the plaintiff's aerials to compete much more effectively with much electrical interference and so minimise the effects of such interference on the quality of the picture produced by the wanted signals.
The plaintiff advertised its service as giving studio-quality pictures, free from interference, fading or ghosting. Until the occurrence of the matters complained of in the action, the reception at the plaintiff's aerials was good in quality and it was exceptional for any electrical interference, which was not due to remediable defects in the plaintiff's own system or in the receiving sets of its customers, to deface the pictures relayed by the plaintiff. Those pictures were normally as of good a quality as could have been obtained on receiving sets situate within a few miles from the transmitting stations.
The plaintiff had about 445 customers who paid for and took television relayed from the mast at Bridlington. There were some 800 other houses in Bridlington wired so as to be capable of receiving this service, the owners of which, however, were not at present subscribers to it. There were also about 825 other houses suitably wired internally to receive the service, but not yet connected by land lines to the plaintiff's mast because necessary wayleaves had yet to be obtained.
The site of the plaintiff's mast was selected with regard to its merits as a site for a receiving station and its freedom from neighbouring sources of possible interference. Between 1961 and 1963 the defendant, the Yorkshire Electricity Board, was seeking to supplement the supply of electricity to Bridlington and its neighbourhood, which was served through a sub-station in Brett Street, Bridlington, equipped with two transformers. The consumption of electricity in the area was such that at times of high demand in the winter both transformers had to be in operation at once. That demand was increasing. If one of the transformers broke down at a time of high demand probably some part of the load would have to be disconnected and some people in the area would be without electricity for the time being. It might have been possible to supplement the depleted supply from Brett Street by transferring some part of the area to a neighbouring source of supply, but the consumers so transferred would have received a much lower voltage than normally. The risk of a transformer breaking down could not be altogether avoided; nor could the moment be foreseen. Moreover, each transformer had from time to time...
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