Townley Mill Company (1919) Ltd v Oldham Assessment Committee
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Blanesburgh,Lord Russell of Killowen,Lord Alness,Lord Maugham |
| Judgment Date | 17 December 1936 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1936] UKHL J1217-1 |
| Court | House of Lords |
[1936] UKHL J1217-1
House of Lords
Lord Blanesburgh.
Lord Russell of Killowen.
Lord Maugham.
After hearing Counsel, as well on Monday the 16th, as on Tuesday the 17th, Thursday the 19th, Friday the 20th, Monday the 23d, Tuesday the 24th and Thursday the 26th, days of November last, upon the Petition and Appeal of The Townley Mill Company (1919), Limited (in voluntary liquidation), a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1929, with registered office situate at Albany Mill, in the Borough of Middleton, in the County of Lancaster, praying, That the matter of the Order set forth in the Schedule thereto, namely, an Order of His Majesty's Court of Appeal, of the 20th of December, 1935, might be reviewed before His Majesty the King, in His Court of Parliament, and that the said Order might be reversed, varied, or altered, or that the Petitioners might have such other relief in the premises as to His Majesty the King, in His Court of Parliament, might seem meet; as also upon the joint printed Case of the said Appellants and of the Respondents, The Assessment Committee for the Assessment Area of Oldham, lodged in the said Appeal; and due consideration had this day of what was offered on either side in this Cause:
It is Ordered and Adjudged, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in the Court of Parliament of His Majesty the King assembled, That the said Order of His Majesty's Court of Appeal, of the 20th day of December, 1935, complained of in the said Appeal, be, and the same is hereby, Reversed, and that the Order of the King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, sitting as a Divisional Court, of the 20th day of June, 1935, thereby set aside, be, and the same is hereby, Restored: And it is further Ordered, That the Respondents do pay, or cause to be paid, to the said Appellants the Costs incurred by them in the Courts below, and also the Costs incurred by them in respect of the said Appeal to this House, the amount of such last-mentioned Costs to be certified by the Clerk of the Parliaments: And it is also further Ordered, That the Cause be, and the same is hereby, remitted back to the King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, to do therein as shall be just and consistent with this Judgment.
My Lords,
I have had the advantage of reading the Opinion which is about to be pronounced by my noble and learned friend Lord Russell of Killowen. I agree entirely with it, and with the motions with which it concludes.
My Lords,
The question here in debate is the measure of the rateability of the owners of premises (formerly, but no longer, carried on as a cotton spinning mill), in respect of their alleged occupation thereof.
The arguments on both sides fall into two divisions; the first consisting of arguments as to the law which should govern the matter irrespective of the provisions of section 24 of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925. These involve a consideration of the extent of the ground covered by certain old decisions such as Staley v. Castleton Overseers and Harter v. Salford Overseers, under which people have been rated in respect of their occupation of silent factories for the purpose of housing machinery therein, and also the correctness of those decisions. The second division consists of arguments as to whether the before-mentioned section applies to the present case and operates to render unnecessary the consideration of the earlier decisions.
The section finds its place in a long Act which embraces within its provisions the law as to rating and valuation which is to prevail when and where the Act applies. The relevant provision of section 24 is subsection (1), which runs thus:—
"For the purpose of the making or revision of valuation lists under this Part of this Act, the following provisions shall have effect with respect to the valuation of any hereditament other than a hereditament the value of which is ascertained by reference to the accounts, receipts or profits of the undertaking carried on therein:—
(a) All such plant or machinery in or on the hereditament as belongs to any of the classes specified in the Third Schedule to this Act shall be deemed to be a part of the hereditament.
(b) Subject as aforesaid no account shall be taken of the value of any plant or machinery in or on the hereditament."
The Third Schedule is in the following terms:—
THIRD SCHEDULE.
Classes of Machinery and Plant to be Deemed to be part of the Hereditament.
1. Machinery and plant (together with the shafting, pipes, cables, wires, and other appliances and structures accessory thereto) which is used or intended to be used, mainly or exclusively in connection with any of the following purposes, that is to say:—
(a) the generation, storage, primary transformation or main transmission of power in or on the hereditament; or
(b) the heating, cooling, ventilating, lighting, draining, or supplying of water to the land or buildings of which the hereditament consists or the protecting of the hereditament from fire:
Provided that, in the case of machinery or plant which is in or on the hereditament for the purpose of manufacturing operations or trade processes, the fact that it is used in connection with those operations or processes for the purpose of heating, cooling, ventilating, lighting, supplying water, or protecting from fire shall not cause it to be treated as falling within the classes of machinery or plant specified in this Schedule.
2. Lifts and elevators mainly or usually used for passengers.
3. Railway and tramway lines and tracks.
4. Such part of any plant or any combination of plant and machinery, including gas holders, blast furnaces, coke ovens, tar distilling plant, cupolas, water towers with tanks, as is, or is in the nature of, a building or structure.
The plant and machinery referred to in section 24, subsection 1 (a) are plant and machinery whose function is, not to execute any manufacturing operation or trade process, but to generate and transmit power to, or to warm, or cool, or ventilate, or light, etc., the hereditaments in question. "They may be conveniently called motive plant and machinery," while manufacturing or trade process plant and machinery may be conveniently referred to as "process plant and machinery."
In the present case the condition of this silent cotton mill as regards its contents was on the 1st April, 1933 (the relevant date) as follows:—The whole floor space of the mill was 23,408 square yards, of which 2,409 square yards were occupied by the motive plant and machinery. A further 2,105 square yards were let off and were in separate rateable occupation. We are not concerned with that part of the mill. The remaining floor space, viz. 18,894 square yards, was fully occupied by process plant and machinery and certain accessories thereto. As to the accessories both parties agree that these are part of the process plant and machinery and are not separately in issue. In addition, the mill contained some chattels of little value. The parties have agreed that in so far as the hereditament is being occupied for the purpose of housing those loose chattels, the Appellants shall be rated in respect of that occupation upon the footing of a £7 rateable value. I might add, though the fact is irrelevant to the question of the Statute, that the process plant and machinery is nearly all physically fixed to the hereditament, and so far as not so fixed it consists of machines fixed by their own weights which vary from 21 cwt. to 115 cwt.
The Assessment Committee fixed the net annual value of the property for rating purposes at £1,437, which they declined to alter, except to the extent of treating the portion which had been let off as a separate hereditament and assessing it accordingly. The Appellants appealed to Quarter Sessions. The committee of Justices appointed for that purpose heard the appeal, and held that there was no beneficial occupation of the hereditament as a cotton mill, but they held that the Appellants "were in beneficial occupation of the hereditaments by reason of the warehousing therein of the process plant and machinery accessories thereto and loose chattels." Quarter Sessions thereupon dismissed the appeal with costs, but stated a case for the opinion of the High Court.
By an order of the King's Bench Division dated the 20th June, 1935, it was ordered that the order of Quarter Sessions be set aside and judgment entered for the Appellants at Quarter Sessions that the rateable value of the premises of the Appellants be assessed at the agreed sum of £7 with costs.
The judgment of the Divisional Court was based solely upon the interpretation of section 24 of the Act of 1925.
The Lord Chief Justice (with whom Hawke and Lawrence JJ. agreed) thought that on the construction of section 24 the matter was plain, and that on its clear language the object of the section was to get rid of the old doctrine that although machinery not forming part of a hereditament could not be rated, nevertheless the rateable value of a hereditament was to be enhanced by reference to the machinery which was in it, and which made it appropriate to the particular industry carried on therein. Under the section motive plant and machinery is to be deemed part of the hereditament which is being valued; as to process plant and machinery, no account is to be taken of its value with respect to the valuation of the hereditament.
My Lords, I agree with the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice. It was said that the section only referred to the value of the process plant and machinery, and did not forbid the taking into account its existence and presence in the hereditament; and that accordingly the section in no way interfered with the application of the old...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
S J & J Monk (A Firm) v Newbigin (Valuation Officer)
...They are the actual conditions affecting the hereditament at the time when the valuation is made." Similarly, in Townley Mill Co (1919) Ltd v Oldham Assessment Committee [1937] AC 419, 437, Lord Maugham, when explaining the legal context in which the Rating and Valuation Act 1925 was enacte......
-
Iceland Foods Ltd v Berry (Valuation Officer)
...of the hereditament (pp 602–603). The decision was upheld by the House of Lords, where can be found statements to similar effect (see [1937] AC 419, pp 428–429 per Lord Russell of Killowen). 15 Turning to the detail of the Third Schedule, Class 1(b) can be seen as the precursor of Class 2 ......
-
Decision Nº RA 480 1993. Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber), 22-02-2000
...AC 273 Poplar Assessment Committee v Roberts [1922] 2 AC 93 Townley Mill Co (1919) Ltd v Oldham Assessment Committee [1936] 1 KB 585; [1937] AC 419 Consett Iron Co Ltd v Assessment Committee for No.5 Area Durham [1931] AC 396 R v Fletton Overseers (1861) 3 E & E 450; 30 LJMC 89 Rozel Motor ......
- Irving Brown & Daughter v Smith (VO)