Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act 1951

JurisdictionUK Non-devolved
Citation1951 c. 64
Year1951


Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act , 1951

(14 & 15 Geo. 6) CHAPTER 64

An Act to make new provision for maintaining or restoring the wholesomeness of the rivers and other inland or coastal waters of England and Wales in place of the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, 1876, and certain other enactments; and to provide for laying before Parliament the annual reports of river boards.

[1st August 1951]

Be 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 Preliminary.

1 Preliminary.

(1) Subject to this Act—

(a ) the functions, in river board areas, of the river board; and

(b ) the functions, in excluded areas—

(i) of the Conservators of the River Thames in the Thames catchment area; and

(ii) of the Lee Conservancy Catchment Board in the Lee catchment area; and

(iii) of the council of a metropolitan borough in the area of that borough so far as not included in sub-paragraph (i) or (ii) of this paragraph; and

(iv) of the county or county borough council in any other area;

shall include the enforcement in their area of this Act, and this Act shall have effect in place of the enactments specified in the First Schedule to this Act.

(2) The Second Schedule to this Act shall have effect—

(a ) for adapting to this Act the River Boards Act, 1948, and other enactments passed before this Act; and

(b ) for adapting the general provisions of this Act in their application outside river board areas and in their application to matters arising wholly or partly before or shortly after the commencement of this Act.

S-2 Prohibition on use of stream for disposal of polluting matter, refuse, etc.

2 Prohibition on use of stream for disposal of polluting matter, refuse, etc.

(1) Subject to this Act, a person commits an offence punishable under this section—

(a ) if he causes or knowingly permits to enter a stream any poisonous, noxious or polluting matter; or

(b ) if he causes or knowingly permits to enter a stream any matter so as to tend either directly or in combination with similar acts (whether his own or another's) to impede the proper flow of the water of the stream in a manner leading or likely to lead to a substantial aggravation of pollution due to other causes or of its consequences;

and for the purposes of paragraph (a ) of this subsection a local authority shall be deemed to cause or knowingly permit to enter a stream any poisonous, noxious or polluting matter, which passes into the stream from any sewer or sewage disposal works vested in them, in any case where either the local authority were bound to receive the matter into the sewer or sewage disposal works, or they consented to do so unconditionally, or they consented to do so subject to conditions and those conditions were observed.

(2) Subsection (1) of this section shall not, by virtue of paragraph (a ) thereof, penalise the discharge of anything into a sewer or sewage disposal works vested in a local authority, so that it passes into a stream, in any such case as aforesaid.

(3) Subject to section five of this Act, the said subsection shall not, by virtue of paragraph (a ) thereof, penalise the discharge into a stream of any trade effluent or any effluent from the sewage disposal or sewerage works of a local authority, if—

(a ) it is not reasonably practicable to dispose of the effluent otherwise than by discharging it (directly or indirectly) into that or some other stream; and

(b ) all reasonably practicable steps are taken to prevent the effluent being unnecessarily poisonous, noxious or polluting:

Provided that this subsection shall not have effect so long as the period referred to in subsection (2) of section eight of this Act (as varied by any Order in Council under subsection (3) of that section) has not expired or been terminated.

(4) The said subsection shall not, by virtue of paragraph (a ) thereof, penalise the discharge of water raised or drained from any underground part of a mine into a stream in the same condition in which it is raised or drained from underground:

Provided that the Minister may by order (which shall be made by statutory instrument and may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order so made by him) direct that this subsection shall not apply to discharges into any specified stream or part of a stream.

(5) The said subsection shall not, by virtue of paragraph (b ) thereof, penalise the depositing with the consent of the river board (which shall not be unreasonably withheld) of the solid refuse of a mine or quarry on any land so that it falls or is carried into a stream, if no other site for the deposit is reasonably practicable, and all reasonably practicable steps are taken to prevent the refuse entering the stream.

(6) Any question whether a river board's consent for the purposes of the last foregoing subsection has or has not been unreasonably withheld shall be determined by the Minister.

(7) Any person guilty of an offence punishable under this section shall be liable—

(a ) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding two hundred pounds; or

(b ) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds:

Provided that where a person is convicted of any such offence, and it is shown to the satisfaction of the court that the offence was substantially a repetition or continuation of an earlier offence by him after he had been convicted of the earlier offence (whether under this Act or otherwise), he shall be liable, if he is convicted on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds for every day on which the earlier offence has been so repeated or continued by him or five hundred pounds (whichever is the greater) or to both or, if he is convicted summarily, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to a fine not exceeding ten pounds for every such day or one hundred pounds (whichever is the greater) or to both.

(8) Where an offence punishable under this section which has been committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or any person purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be deemed to be guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

In this subsection, the expression ‘director’, in relation to any body corporate established by or under any enactment for the purpose of carrying on under national ownership any industry or part of an industry or undertaking, being a body corporate whose affairs are managed by the members thereof, means a member of that body.

(9) Where a person is convicted of an offence by virtue of the last foregoing subsection as having at the time of its commission been a director, general manager, secretary or other similar officer of a body corporate within the meaning of that subsection (or been purporting to act in any such capacity), and it is shown to the satisfaction of the court that the offence was substantially a repetition or continuation of an earlier offence by the body corporate after it had been convicted of the earlier offence (whether under this Act or otherwise), he shall be liable to the same penalties as the body corporate under the proviso to subsection (7) of this section, including the imprisonment to which it would be liable if a natural person:

Provided that—

(a ) he shall not be so liable if he shows that at the time of the first-mentioned offence he did not know of the body corporate's conviction for the earlier offence and that at the time of the earlier offence he was not acting or purporting to act in any such capacity; and

(b ) in determining the maximum amount of any fine to which he is so liable any repetition or continuation of the earlier offence by the body corporate shall be disregarded if he shows either—

(i) that at the time when the repetition or continuation occurred he was not acting or purporting to act in any such capacity; or

(ii) that the repetition or continuation occurred without his consent or connivance and that he exercised all such diligence to prevent its occurrence as he ought to have exercised having regard to the nature of his functions in any such capacity in which he was acting or purporting to act and to all the circumstances.

S-3 Prevention and making good of defaults under s. 2.

3 Prevention and making good of defaults under s. 2.

(1) Where a river board apprehends that a contravention of subsection (1) of the last foregoing section as respects any stream in their area (whether a new contravention or a repetition or continuation of one already occurred or occurring) is likely to occur—

(a ) by reason of any use or proposed use of the stream or of any land for the disposal of any matter; or

(b ) by reason of any use or proposed use of any land for the storage of any matter; or

(c ) by reason of any use or proposed use of a vessel in a defective state of repair for the carriage of cargoes from which poisonous, noxious or polluting matter may enter the stream;

then, subject to this Act, the board may apply to the court, and the court (if satisfied of the matters complained of by the application) may make an order prohibiting the use complained of or permitting it only on terms designed to remove the grounds of complaint, or such other order as the court thinks fit.

(2) For the purposes of the proviso to subsection (7) and of subsection (9) of the last...

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