Roads and Bridges (Scotland) Act 1878
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1878 c. 51 |
| Year | 1878 |
Roads and Bridges (Scotland) Act, 1878
(41 & 42 Vict.) CHAPTER 51.
An Act to alter and amend the Law in regard to the Maintenance and Management of Roads and Bridges in Scotland.
[8th August 1878]
B E it 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:
1 Short title, and commencement of Act.
1. This Act may be cited for all purposes as theRoads and Bridges (Scotland) Act, 1878, and, except in so far as otherwise expressly provided, it shall commence and take effect in each county (including the burghs wholly or partly within the same) from the date of its adoption therein, as herein-after provided for.
2 Extent of Act.
2. This Act shall apply to Scotland only, except in so far as otherwise expressly provided.
3 Interpretation.
3. In this Act the following words and expressions shall have the meanings hereby assigned to them respectively, unless there be something in the subject or context repugnant to such construction:
‘The Secretary of State’ shall mean one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State:
‘Sheriff’ shall include sheriff-substitute:
‘The trustees’ shall mean the county road trustees appointed and acting under this Act:
‘The board’ shall mean the county road board appointed and acting under this Act:
‘The district committee’ shall mean the district road committee appointed and acting in any district under this Act:
‘Clerk,’‘treasurer,’‘collector,’ and ‘surveyor,’ shall respectively mean the county road clerk, the county road treasurer, the county road collector, and the county road surveyor, appointed and acting for the time being under this Act:
‘County’ shall mean (except where otherwise expressly provided) the county exclusive of any burgh wholly or partly situate therein, and shall not include a county of a city:
‘Burgh’ shall mean and include royal burgh, parliamentary burgh, or any populous place the boundaries whereof have been fixed and ascertained under the provisions of the General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act, 1862, or of the Act first therein recited, or have been determined by or under any local Act, provided that the population of such populous place, as the same may be ascertained as nearly as possible in the manner described in the seventh clause of the General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act, 1862, within three months after this Act commencing to have effect therein, exceeds five thousand:
‘Police burgh’ shall mean every such populous place, the population of which shall not have been ascertained in manner aforesaid to exceed five thousand:
‘Burgh local authority’ or ‘local authority of any burgh’ shall mean the town council, commissioners of police, or other local authority having the management and control of the streets, and the power to levy assessments in respect thereof, in any burgh, under or in virtue of any general or local Act or of this Act:
‘Parish’ shall include united parish, but it shall be exclusive of any burgh or police burgh wholly or partly situated within a parish:
‘Turnpike road’ shall include all roads and bridges forming part of any turnpike road trust and all bridges under the management of any separate bridge trust:
‘Statute labour’ shall include moneys raised as the conversion of statute labour, or in lieu thereof, and bridge money:
‘Statute labour road’ shall include all roads and bridges maintained by statute labour:
‘Highway’ shall mean and include all existing turnpike roads, all existing statute labour roads, all roads maintained under the provisions of the Highland Roads and Bridges Act, 1862, and all bridges forming part of any highway, and all other roads when declared to be highways under the provisions of this Act, all public streets and roads within any burgh or police burgh not at the commencement of this Act vested in the local authority thereof, but shall not include any street or road so vested, or any street or road or bridge which any person is at the commencement of this Act bound to maintain at his own expense:
‘Bridge’ shall include the accesses thereof, but shall not include any bridge which any person is, at the commencement of this Act, bound to maintain at his own expense:
‘Tolls’ shall include pontages; and also any sum payable in respect of any exemption from or relinquishment of tolls:
‘Causeway-mail’ shall include through customs and all exactions of whatever kind, and also any sum or duty payable or leviable in lieu or satisfaction thereof or in respect of any exemption therefrom, other than tolls or assessments, made or which may be made in respect of the use of or passage over the streets or roads within any burgh, but shall not include petty customs or any sum or duty as aforesaid except in so far as they are exacted payable or leviable in respect of goods, articles, things, or animals passing or carried through such burgh:
‘Proprietor’ and ‘lands and heritages’ shall have the same meanings as are attached thereto respectively in the Act passed in the seventeenth and eighteenth years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter ninety-one, intituled ‘An Act for the valuation of lands and heritages in Scotland;’ and the expression ‘the valuation roll’ shall mean the valuation roll in force for the time in any county or burgh, as the case may be, made up under the authority of the said Act, or any other Act relating to the valuation of lands and heritages in Scotland:
‘Person’ shall include corporation, incorporated company, commissioners, or trustees (not being county road trustees):
‘Ratepayer’ shall mean any person (not being a commissioner of supply) being of full age and not subject to any legal incapacity, whose name appears as proprietor, tenant, or occupier of lands and heritages entered on the valuation roll for the county as of the annual value of four pounds and upwards, or as joint proprietor, tenant, or occupier of lands and heritages entered on such roll of an annual value which, when divided by the number of such joint proprietors, tenants, or occupiers, yields a quotient of four pounds and upwards:
‘Debt Commissioner’ shall mean a Debt Commissioner appointed for the purposes of this Act:
‘Local newspaper’ shall mean any newspaper circulating in the county or burgh as the case may be:
Where in this Act notice is required to be given by ‘special advertisement,’ such notice shall be published once in at least two local newspapers.
Continuance of existing Local Acts.
4 Existing Local Acts to continue to 1st June 1883.
4. All Local Acts now in force for regulating, managing, making, maintaining, or repairing any turnpike road or statute labour road, or other highway situated or partly situated in any county (including the burghs wholly or partly within the same) in which tolls and statute labour, or either thereof, have not been abolished, shall continue in force until the first day of June one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three, and no longer, unless in the meantime this Act shall be adopted, or tolls and statute labour shall be legally abolished, in such county.
From and after the time at which any such Act or Acts shall cease to be in force in any county (including as aforesaid), this Act shall, unless Parliament otherwise provides, commence to have effect therein.
Where any Act relates to a turnpike road which is situated in more than one county, notwithstanding that such Act has ceased, in terms of this Act, to be in force in one county in which such road is situated, it may nevertheless continue to be in force in the other county or counties in which such road is situated.
For the purposes of this Act the Highland Roads and Bridges Act, 1862, shall be deemed and taken to be a Local Act, except in so far as it relates to piers and quays.
Provided always, that nothing contained in this Act shall have the effect of continuing in force the provisions of the Act passed in the ninth and tenth years of the reign of Her present Majesty,intituled ‘An Act for repairing certain roads in the counties of Banff, Aberdeen, and Elgin,’ after the end of the next session of Parliament.
5 Certain Local Acts continued till adoption of Act.
5. Where any Local Act in force in a county in which tolls and statute labour have been abolished or are not exigible is limited as to its endurance, such Act shall continue in force until this Act shall be adopted in such county.
Adoption of the Act.
6 How Act may be adopted in counties.
6. The following provisions shall have effect with regard to the adoption of this Act:
(1) (1.) In those counties in which tolls and statute labour have been abolished, or are not exigible, or power has been obtained to abolish them, or to arrange for their abolition, this Act may be adopted in place of the Local Act or Acts relating to roads, highways, and bridges therein in force in such county, on a resolution to that effect agreed to by not less than two-thirds of the trustees under such Act or Acts present and voting at a meeting of the whole trustees of the county called by special advertisement on not less than thirty days notice, for the purpose of considering as to the adoption hereof; and the convener of any such county as aforesaid, on a requisition to that effect, signed by any six of the said trustees, being presented to him, shall call a meeting of the said trustees, with a view to consider a resolution in favour of the adoption of this Act, and in the event of such resolution not being carried by the...
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