R v Avon County Council, ex parte Terry Adams Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 14 January 1994 |
| Date | 14 January 1994 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
Before Lord Justice Ralph Gibson, Lord Justice McCowan and Lord Justice Hobhouse
Court of Appeal
Local authority - waste disposal company - tenders for contracts - authority cannot discriminate
A local authority, acting as a waste disposal authority, when setting up a waste disposal company, was not entitled to discriminate unduly so as to avoid open competition between different companies when tendering for contracts.
The Court of Appeal so held in a reserved judgment when allowing the appeal in part of Terry Adams Ltd, a competing waste disposal contractor, against the decision of Mr Justice Jowitt (The Times July 7, 1993) to dismiss on the ground of locus standi its application for judicial review of the decision by Avon County Council on February 16, 1993 to award to Avon Waste Management Ltd (AWM) five contracts for the disposal of waste material.
Mr Robert Carnwath, QC and Mr Richard Gordon for Terry Adams; Mr James Goudie, QC and Mr Peter Oldham for Avon; Mr Mark Shaw for Wessex Waste Management Ltd.
LORD JUSTICE RALPH GIBSON said that Terry Adams Ltd carried on business as a waste disposal company. It owned a landfill site where it received waste for disposal. AWM was a company set up and owned by Avon under and for the purposes of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
The main complaint of Terry Adams was that, at different stages of the process required by the 1990 Act for the purposes of the placing by Avon of contracts for the disposal of waste, the statutory tendering process was unlawfully distorted and, in the result, Terry Adams's tender was rejected in favour of AWM.
Section 51 of the 1990 Act provided: "(1) It shall be the duty of each waste disposal authority to arrange (a) for the disposal of the controlled waste collected in its area by the waste collection authorities; … by means of arrangements made (in accordance with Part II of Schedule 2 to this Act) with waste disposal contractors, but by no other means." The arrangements in accordance with Part II of Schedule 2 were to be made by a process of obtaining tenders.
A consequence of those provisions was the need for a waste disposal authority to make arrangements for divesting itself of its existing waste disposal undertakings.
In determining the terms and conditions of any contract for waste disposal, into which the waste disposal authority proposed to enter, after and as a result...
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Ackermon v CI Govt
...[1983] 2 A.C. 237; [1982] 3 W.L.R. 1096; [1982] 3 All E.R. 1124, applied. (5) R. v. Avon County Council, ex p.Terry Adams Ltd., [1994] Env. L.R. 442, applied. (6) R. v. Chief Const.(Devon & Cornwall), ex p.Hay, [1996] 2 All E.R. 711, applied. (7) R. v. Cotswold District Council, ex p.Barrin......
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...Mr Goodland's case which was averse to the Defendant. Similarly, this is not a case like R (Terry Adams Limited) v Avon County Council [1994] Env LR 442, on which the Defendant relies, where there is a genuine issue as to a continuing administrative process following a decision which affect......
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