Clause 224

HC Deb 20 July 1972 vol 841 cc1052-3

SERVICE OF NOTICES ON LOCAL AUTHORITIES, ETC.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page

I beg to move Amendment No. 1136, in page 159, line 1, at beginning insert 'Subject to subsection (3) below'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallallieu)

We can also discuss Amendment No. 1137.

Mr. Page

Clause 224 provides a code for the service of notices on local authorities. The Amendments make this code rather more explicit and. at the same time, make clear that the code does not apply to a document to be given or served in court proceedings. In particular, the Amendment provides that any notice required under any enactment to be served on the council, its chairman, or a specified officer shall be properly served if left at the principal office of the authority or posted to that office. But where the authority has special arrangements for a class of document—for instance, planning applications—to be received at some other office, then the document may alternatively be served there.

The Clause, as amended, will provide both for the uninitiated to serve notices where they would expect to serve it—at the town hall—and it gives legal cover to arrangements for local or decentralised offices which it may in some cases be more convenient both for the authority and for local professional men in regular contact with them to use for this purpose.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: No. 1137, page 159, line 3, leave out from 'be' to end of line 12 and insert: 'given to or served on a local authority or the chairman or an officer of a local authority shall be given or served by addressing it to the local authority and leaving it at, or sending it by post to, the principal office of the authority or any other office of the authority specified by them as one at which they will accept documents of the same description as that document.

1. (2) Any notice, order or other document so required or authorised to be given to or served on a parish meeting shall be given or served by addressing it to the chairman of the parish meeting and by delivering it to him, or by leaving it at his last known address, or by sending it by post to him at that address.
2. (3) The foregoing provisions of this section do not apply to a document which is to be given or served in any proceedings in court, but except as aforesaid the methods of giving or serving documents provided for by those provisions are in substitution for the methods provided for by any other enactment or any instrument made under an enactment so far as it relates to the giving or service of documents to or on a local authority, the chairman or an officer of a local authority or a parish meeting'.—[Mr. Graham Page.]