Covent Garden Market Act 1961
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1961 c. 49 |
| Year | 1961 |
Covent Garden Market Act, 1961.
(9 & 10 Eliz. 2) CHAPTER 49
An Act to establish a Covent Garden Market Authority and vest in them lands in the parish of Saint Paul, Covent Garden, and chattels the property of Covent Garden Market Limited; to make provision for the conduct in, and adjacent to, Covent Garden, under the control of the Covent Garden Market Authority, of activities relating to the dealing in bulk in horticultural produce; and to make provision with respect to matters arising out of the matters aforesaid.
Whereas by Letters Patent bearing date at Westminster the twelfth day of May, sixteen hundred and seventy (in this Act referred to as ‘the Letters Patent’), His late Majesty King Charles the Second gave and granted to William Earl of Bedford the right to have, hold and keep, in a place in the parish of Saint Paul, Covent Garden, commonly called, and in this Act referred to as, ‘the Piazza’, a market for the buying and selling of all manner of fruit, flowers, roots, and herbs, whatsoever, together with all liberties and free customs, tolls, stallage, piccage, and all other profits, advantages, and emoluments whatsoever, to such market any way belonging, appertaining, arising, or coming, or with the same used, held, or enjoyed:
And whereas such market was held accordingly in the Piazza and, together with the ground on which it was held, became known by the name of Covent Garden Market:
And whereas with the effluxion of time there arose so great an increase of the quantity of articles brought to the said market for sale and of the number of persons resorting thereto as to necessitate the passing, in the fifty-third year of the reign of His late Majesty King George the Third, of an Act entitled ‘An Act for regulating Covent Garden Market’:
And whereas the said Act was, in the ninth year of the reign of His late Majesty King George the Fourth, repealed and replaced by another Act (in this Act referred to as ‘the Improvement Act’) entitled ‘An Act for the improvement and regulation of Covent Garden Market’:
And whereas, during a period of thirty years (more or less) beginning about the year eighteen hundred and sixty, Francis Duke of Bedford and his successors erected, upon land adjacent to the Piazza, buildings to which persons resorted to buy and sell fruit, flowers and other horticultural produce:
And whereas, as the result of divers transactions, the rights conferred by the Letters Patent and the Improvement Act together with the fee simple as well of the greater part of the land comprising the Piazza as of the land adjacent thereto the site of the said buildings, and of other land adjacent thereto, have become vested in a company named Covent Garden Market Limited (in this Act referred to as ‘the Company’):
And whereas it is expedient to make further provision for regulating the market business carried on on the lands aforesaid and in the neighbourhood thereof and, in connection therewith, for reducing the congestion of traffic and the risk of fire now occasioned by the ill-arranged state of those lands and the land in the neighbourhood thereof, and for that purpose to constitute a public authority and vest in them, for the interest therein of the Company, such of the lands aforesaid as are coloured pink on the plans (in this Act referred to as ‘the deposited plans’) which, in connection with the Bill for this Act, have been deposited with the London County Council and the Council of the City of Westminster:
And whereas books of reference to the deposited plans, containing the names of the owners or reputed owners, lessees or reputed lessees, and occupiers of the lands coloured pink on those plans, have been deposited with those plans:
Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
The Covent Garden Market Authority
1 The Covent Garden Market Authority.
(1) On such day as may be appointed for the purposes of this section by an order made by the Minister by statutory instrument, there shall be constituted an Authority to be called the Covent Garden Market Authority (hereafter in this Act referred to as ‘the Authority’) which shall exercise and perform the functions assigned to them by this Act.
(2) The Authority shall consist of a chairman and a managing director appointed by the Minister, and such number of other members so appointed, not being less than three nor more than six, as the Minister may from time to time determine.
(3) The members of the Authority shall be appointed from amongst persons appearing to the Minister to have had wide experience of, and shown capacity in, industry, commerce, administration, transport, finance, the practice of the law or the organisation of workers, or to have, in some other respect, special knowledge or experience that would be of value to the Authority in the exercise and performance of their functions, and of the members one shall be a person nominated by the Minister of Transport.
(4) Before appointing a person to be a member of the Authority, the Minister shall satisfy himself that that person will have no such financial or other interest as is likely to affect prejudicially the discharge by him of his functions as member of the Authority, and the Minister shall also satisfy himself from time to time with respect to every member of the Authority that he has no such interest; and a person who is, or whom the Minister proposes to appoint to be, a member of the Authority shall, whenever required by the Minister so to do, furnish to him such information as the Minister considers necessary for the performance by the Minister of his duties under this subsection.
(5) The Authority—
(a ) shall pay to each member of the Authority other than the managing director, in respect of the member's office as such, such remuneration (whether by way of salary or fees) and such allowances as the Minister may, with the approval of the Treasury, determine, and to the chairman in respect of his office as such, such remuneration and allowances (in addition to any remuneration and allowances to which he may be entitled in respect of his office as a member), and to the managing director such salary and allowances, as the Minister may, with the like approval, determine; and
(b ) in the case of such members as the Minister may, with the approval of the Treasury determine, shall pay such pensions or make such payments towards the provision of pensions to or in respect of those members as he may, with the like approval, determine in the case of those members respectively.
(6) The Minister shall, as soon as possible after the constitution of the Authority, lay before each House of Parliament a statement of the remuneration and allowances that are or will be payable to the members of the Authority under this section; and, if a subsequent determination by him under this section involves a departure from the terms of the said statement or if a determination by him under this section relates to the payment of, or to payments towards the provision of, a pension to or in respect of a member of the Authority, the Minister shall, as soon as possible after the determination, lay a statement thereof before each House of Parliament.
(7) The incidental provisions contained in the First Schedule to this Act shall have effect with respect to the Authority.
Vesting in the Covent Garden Market Authority of market Lands, and Provisions ancillary thereto
2 Vesting of market lands.
2. On such day as may be appointed for the purposes of this section by an order made by the Minister by statutory instrument (hereafter in this Act referred to as ‘the vesting day’) the lands in the City of Westminster coloured pink on the deposited plans (hereafter in this Act referred to as ‘the market lands’) shall, by virtue of this section and without further assurance, vest in the Authority for a title comprising all the interests of the Company then subsisting therein, freed and discharged from all mortgages of and charges on those interests but in other respects subject to, and with the benefit of, the covenants (except covenants discharged by the following provisions of this Act), agreements, limitations and rights, to which they were subject and of which they had the benefit immediately before that day.
3 Revocation of Letters Patent and Improvement Act, and other provisions consequential on vesting of market lands.
3. On the vesting day—
4 Discharge of certain covenants in, or arising out of, conveyances of land in Covent Garden Area for securing payment of tolls.
(1) A covenant (however expressed) contained in a conveyance executed before the fourth day of November, nineteen hundred and sixty, of land in the Covent Garden Area whose effect is to prohibit the use of that land for the sale or warehousing, without the consent of the vendor or his assignee, of produce for the time being usually sold or dealt with in the Covent Garden Markets, being a...
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