Public Health (Drainage of Trade Premises) Act 1937

JurisdictionUK Non-devolved
Citation1937 c. 40


Public Health (Drainage of Trade Premises) Act, 1937

(1 Edw. 8 & 1 Geo. 6.) CHAPTER 40.

An Act to amend the law with respect to the discharge of trade effluents into public sewers of local authorities.

[1st July 1937]

B E it enacted by the King'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:—

S-1 Right to discharge trade effluents into public sewers.

1 Right to discharge trade effluents into public sewers.

(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act and of any byelaws under this Act which are for the time being in force, and notwithstanding any restriction imposed by paragraph (a of section thirty-four of the Public Health Act, 1936 (hereafter in this Act referred to as ‘the principal Act’), the occupier of any trade premises within the district of a local authority may, with the consent of the local authority or, so far as is permitted by any such byelaws as aforesaid, without such consent, discharge into the public sewers of the local authority any trade effluent proceeding from those premises.

(2) Nothing in paragraphs (a ) and (b to (5) of section thirty-four of the principal Act (which regulate the making of connections with public sewers for the purpose of drainage into such sewers) shall apply in relation to the lawful discharge of any trade effluent into public sewers as those subsections apply in relation to any discharge of matters into such sewers which is authorised by subsection (1) of that section.

(3) Section twenty-six of the principal Act is hereby repealed.

S-2 Special restrictions on discharge of trade effluents.

2 Special restrictions on discharge of trade effluents.

(1) No trade effluent shall be discharged from any trade premises into a public sewer of a local authority otherwise than in accordance with a written notice (hereafter in this Act referred to as ‘a trade effluent notice’) served on the local authority by the owner or occupier of the premises, stating—

(a ) the nature or composition of the trade effluent,

(b ) the maximum quantity of the trade effluent which it is proposed to discharge on any one day, and

(c ) the highest rate at which it is proposed to discharge the trade effluent;

and no trade effluent shall be discharged in accordance with such a notice until the expiration of the period of two months, or such less time as may be agreed to by the local authority, from the day on which the notice is served on the local authority (hereafter in this Act referred to as ‘the initial period’).

(2) In so far as the discharge of any trade effluent in accordance with a trade effluent notice would not be lawful without the consent of the local authority, the notice shall be deemed to he an application for that consent.

(3) Where a trade effluent notice in respect of any premises is served on a local authority, the local authority may, at any time within the initial period, give to the owner or occupier, as the case may be, of those premises a direction that no trade effluent shall be discharged in pursuance of the notice until a specified date after the end of the initial period; and, in so far as the discharge of any trade effluent in accordance with the trade effluent notice requires the consent of the local authority in order to be lawful, the local authority may give that consent either unconditionally or subject to such conditions as the local authority think fit to impose with respect to—

(a ) the sewer or sewers into which any trade effluent may be discharged in pursuance of the trade effluent notice,

(b ) the nature or composition of the trade effluent which may be so discharged,

(c ) the maximum quantity of any trade effluent which may be so discharged on any one day, either generally or into a particular sewer,

(d ) the highest rate at which any trade effluent may be discharged in pursuance of the trade effluent notice, either generally or into a particular sewer, and

(e ) any other matter with respect to which byelaws may be made under this Act,

but any such condition as aforesaid shall be of no effect if and so far as it is inconsistent with any byelaws so made which are for the time being in force.

(4) A local authority, on receiving a trade effluent notice duly served on them, shall forthwith send a copy of the notice to any interested body, and the local authority shall not have power to take any further action under the preceding provisions of this section in relation to the notice, without the approval of the body or bodies (if any) to whom the local authority are required by this subsection to send a copy of the notice.

(5) If, in the case of any trade premises—

(a ) any trade effluent is discharged in contravention of this section, or without such consent (if any) as is necessary for the purposes of this Act, or

(b ) any direction or condition given or imposed under this section is contravened,

the occupier of the premises shall be guilty of an offence.

S-3 Appeals to the Minister.

3 Appeals to the Minister.

(1) Any person aggrieved by a direction of a local authority given under the last preceding section in relation to a trade effluent notice, or by the refusal of a local authority to give a consent for which application has been duly made to them by means of such a notice, or by the failure of a local authority to give such a consent within the initial period, or by any condition attached by a local authority to such a consent, may appeal to the the Minister, and upon any such appeal the Minister—

(a ) where the appeal is in respect of such a direction as aforesaid, may either annul the direction or modify it by substituting an earlier date for the date specified in the direction as the date before which no trade effluent is to be discharged in pursuance of the notice,

(b ) Where the appeal is in respect of such a refusal or failure as aforesaid, may give the necessary consent, either unconditionally or subject to any such condition as the Minister thinks fit to impose for determining any of the matters mentioned in paragraphs (a ) to (e ) of subsection (3) of the last preceding section,

(c ) where the appeal is in respect of such a condition as aforesaid in relation to any matter, may either annul the condition or substitute therefor any less stringent Condition in relation to the same matter, or

(d ) in any case, may dismiss the appeal;

and the decision of the Minister on any such appeal shall be final:

Provided that at any stage of the proceedings on such an appeal the Minister may, and, if so directed by the High Court, shall, state in the form of a special case for the opinion of the High Court any question of law arising in those proceedings.

(2) For the avoidance of doubt it is hereby declared that a person aggrieved by the failure of a local authority to give such a consent as aforesaid within the initial period has a right of appeal under this section, notwithstanding that the failure may be occasioned only by the fact that an interested body have not approved the giving of the consent.

(3) Where, by virtue of this section, the Minister modifies a direction or gives a consent or imposes a condition, then for the purposes of the preceding sections of this Act, the direction, as so modified, or the consent or condition, as the case may be, shall be deemed to have been duly given or imposed by the local authority under the last preceding section.

S-4 Exemption.

4 Exemption.

(1) For the purposes of this Act the consent of a local authority to the discharge of any trade effluent from any trade premises into a sewer of the local authority shall not be necessary, if any trade effluent of the same nature or composition as that of the trade effluent in question was lawfully discharged as aforesaid from those premises into that sewer at some time within the period of one year ending on the third day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, and if and so long as—

(a ) the quantity of the trade effluent discharged from the premises into the sewer on any one day does not exceed the maximum quantity thereof so discharged on any one day during the said period, and

(b ) the rate at which the trade effluent is discharged from the premises into the sewer is not higher than the highest rate at which it was so discharged during the said period, and

(c ) (where the trade effluent was at any time within the said period discharged into the sewer under an agreement between the local authority and the owner or occupier of the trade premises, being an agreement which was in force at the end of the said period but has thereafter ceased to be in force) the owner or occupier of those premises makes to the local authority, in accordance with the terms of the agreement, such payments (if any) in respect of the reception of the trade effluent into the sewer as he would have been obliged to make under that agreement if it were still in force.

(2) Where, in relation to any premises having a drain or sewer communicating with a public sewer or a cesspool, the local authority, acting in pursuance of section forty-two of the principal Act, have, whether before or after the commencement of this Act, closed that drain or sewer (hereinafter referred to as ‘the old drain or sewer’) and provided in lieu thereof another drain or sewer (hereinafter referred to as ‘the new drain or sewer’) communicating with a public sewer, the consent of the local authority to the discharge of any trade effluent through the new drain or sewer into...

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