Newcastle City Council v Royal Newcastle Hospital
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judgment Date | 1959 |
| Date | 1959 |
| Year | 1959 |
| Court | Privy Council |
Australia - New South Wales - Rates and rating - Exemption - Hospital (public) - Owner of adjoining unfenced physically unused vacant land - Intentional acquisition for purposes of hospital - Amenity advantages - Whether “used” for purposes of hospital - Statutory exemption from rates -
Section 132 of the Local Government Act, 1919, of New South Wales provides:
“(1) All land in a municipality … shall be rateable except … (d) land which belongs to any public hospital … and is used or occupied by the hospital … for the purposes thereof; …”
The respondent, a public hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis, owned 291 acres of unfenced land in its virgin state adjoining other land in the city of Newcastle owned by and on which the hospital stood. The 291 acres, of which the hospital made no physical use — it was vacant land intersected by steep gullies and heavily timbered — had been acquired for the purposes of the hospital, namely, to keep the atmosphere clear and unpolluted; to prevent building on the land; to provide quiet and serene surroundings for the patients; and to give room to expand the activities of the hospital. On a claim by the appellant local authority to recover rates on the 291 acres:—
Held, that an owner can use land by keeping it in its virgin state for his own special purposes, and the 291 acres, from which the hospital intentionally derived the above-specified advantages, were “used” for the purposes of the hospital and, accordingly, exempt from the payment of rates under section 132 (1) (d) of the Act of 1919.
Doubted, but observations on, whether the land was “occupied” by the hospital.
APPEAL (No. 38 of 1958), by special leave, from a judgment of the High Court of Australia (March 21, 1957), affirming an order of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (June 18, 1956), which dismissed the present appellant's (the Newcastle City Council's) appeal from a judgment of Richardson J. (June 24, 1955), holding that the respondent, the Royal Newcastle Hospital, was not liable to pay rates in respect of a plot of land owned by it in the City of Newcastle.
The following facts are taken from the judgment of the Judicial Committee: In the city of Newcastle, New South Wales, there was a hospital called the Royal Newcastle Hospital, which received patients suffering from tuberculosis. It had about 100 beds. It was set in grounds laid out with lawns and gardens. Those grounds covered 17½ acres and were enclosed with a ring fence. Outside the fence the hospital owned 18½ acres of rough ground marked off by five white posts. Beyond that rough ground the hospital owned 291 acres of land which was still in its virgin state. Those 291 acres were traversed by ridges and gullies, which were heavily timbered, with a good deal of underwood. The gullies were steep and rough, some of them so steep that they were impassible. There was very little flat land. There were a few bush tracks, one of which was well defined: but...
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