HC Deb 29 June 1900 vol 85 cc78-80
MR. T. M. HEALY (Louth, N.)

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Act, 1897, empowered the company to lay a tramway to Howth along the public road from Sutton to Censure and along the Bailey Road, but that the company, instead of laying a tramway along the public road, built a tramroad between those points on lands acquired from private owners, and raised the some a foot above the public road, but without fencing it off' for the safety of the public or providing for surface drainage; whether, considering that the Irish Courts have decided that there is an essential difference between a tramroad and a tramway, one being part of the road available for public traffic and the other being a railway, the road authority has power to sanction such deviation from the powers of the Act under Section 20, as the company allege; is any agreement under that section as to construction between the company and the road authority to be subject to the provisions of the Act, and confined to tramways along or across any street or road; do the Board of Trade maintain that such an agreement is within the competence of the parties, and have the Board of Trade been asked to sanction a departure from Section 9 of the Act, which provides that the tramways shall be laid and maintained in such a manner that the surface of the rails shall be on a level with the surface of the carriage way of the road along which same is laid; and whether, as the line is not to be opened for public traffic without a certificate from the Board of Trade, such certificate will be granted until the law is complied with.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. RITCHIE,) Croydon

I am aware that, at the request of the road authority, the railway company proposed to lay the tramway along the side of the road instead of on the road itself. The Board of Trade informed the company that the Department had no power to authorise such a deviation from the authorised line, but that as the alteration was made at the request of the road authority they would not refuse to inspect the line if so made. It is clear that the company should take the earliest convenient opportunity of obtaining statutory authority for the alteration.

MR. FLAVIN

Is there any power to construct a tramway on a public road?

MR. RITCHIE

Certainly, if authority is given.