HC Deb 10 May 1976 vol 911 cc58-65

'For subsection (2) of section 176 of the Hgihways Act 1959 there shall be substituted the following subsection: (2) In settling the apportionment regard shall be had to the following considerations—

  1. (a) the greater or less degree of benefit to be derived by any premises from the street works; and
  2. (b) the amount and value of any work already done by the owners or occupiers of any premises" '.—[Mr. Ronald Bell.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell (Beaconsfield)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)

With this we are to take Amendment No. 185, in Title, line 9, after 'enactments', insert: 'to amend section 176(2) of the Highways Act 1959'

Mr. Bell

The new clause is about what are called road charges, and its purpose is to amend Section 176(2) of the Highways Act 1959. I have in mind what the Minister said about the purpose of the Bill, but I hope that he will feel that the clause can be encompassed within that intention.

Almost every private Act of a local authority has some provision about road charges. In the case of my own county, Buckinghamshire, its private Act has a provision which allows it to mitigate the road charges on flank frontages. The Highways Act 1959 is one of those unusual Acts which was drafted by a departmental committee, the Reading Committee, of which I was a member. Drafting a highways measure is a labour of Hercules, but I took the opportunity, within the rather narrow terms of our remit, to introduce into the Highways Act some mitigation for frontages of the provisions hitherto applying to the making up of private roads, particularly in relation to flank frontages.

The purpose of the new clause is to make mandatory upon local authorities a procedure that is at present in Section 167(2) of the Highways Act, but is there in optional form. What that section says about the making up of private roads is that the cost of making them up shall be divided among the frontagers according to the length of their frontages, and then subsection (2) offers a voluntary mitigation of that by saying that the local authority may resolve—not must—that regard must be had to the degree of benefit from the making up enjoyed by the various frontagers and also—though this is not really the point—to any money that has been spent by them on making up the road. The degree of benefit point is the one that I am making with my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) in the new clause.

The optional procedure which takes into account the degree of benefit is, in my experience, hardly ever used, and one understands why. The Section 1 procedure, which is arithmetical according to the length of frontage, is simple. One takes a tape measure and measures the frontage, and, having got the estimated total cost, one divides the length of frontages into the cost and so finds what each person has to pay.

Those concerned can appeal to the magistrates' court, but there is not much one can do with the laws of arithmetic and the scope of appeal is so narrow that there is not much point in appealing. If, however, the local authority, under the existing law, resolves to have regard to the degree of benefit, the frontager can appeal to the magistrates' court and argue about the validity of the council's decision on the degree of benefit that he will get from the making up of the road.

There is a very good argument concerning comparative degrees of benefit, and local authorities do not like to get involved in this argument in court. They solve the problem by not adopting the optional procedure at all. This matters, because the strict arithmetical system can work extreme hardship on some people. I suppose that a Member of this House raises points such as this almost inevitably when he comes across practical illustrations in his constituency.

I have a special interest in this in any event, but I have come across some most disturbing cases which have presented dreadful financial problems. I have one at the moment. A constituent has a "front" frontage on to a road which is not being made up, and the length of his garden, which is reasonably long, has a flank frontage to a road which is to be made up. He is not a person of substantial means—he is retired, on a pension—and he is faced with an enormous bill for the making up of a long stretch of road from which he derives no benefit at all because he has no entrance on to it. But there is virtually nothing that can be done about it in the existing state of the law.

He will, of course, on my advice, appeal to the Secretary of State under the appropriate section by way of memorial, on the ground of hardship. Perhaps I can put in a word on that now. I hope that his case will be regarded with great sympathy.

That is not the only case. I have known some other very hard cases. I have raised the matter on a number of occasions in my time in the House. We soldier on, and sympathy is always expressed, but nothing is ever done because it would mean a slight amendment of the law. The new clause in effect replaces "may" by "shall": it makes it compulsory.

I suppose that this time I shall be told that this is a Bill for tidying up loose ends after the churning up of 1972 and that some other Bill would be more appropriate. Always in the past there have been temporising answers, but we still have these desperate cases.

I know that the advance payments code may seem to put a term at some time in the future on these hard cases, but the advance payments code was applied to rural areas at different times. I am in part responsible for that myself. The late Mr. Mitchison—later Lord Mitchison—introduced the advance payments code in the form of a Private Member's Bill. I and other Members with rural constituencies where the frontages code applied had long pointed out the risk of extreme hardship for somebody with a very long frontage to a new house having to put down a very large sum of money, with no guarantee that the road would ever be made up, because the advance payments code did not impose on local authorities a duty to make up the road within any period of time. We represented—and it was accepted—that it should be applied to rural districts on application by the rural district authority.

The result has been that, as a rural district began to be built up, it was advantageous to have the advance payments code applied to it. It has been progressive, and there are many areas where the hangover from the old system before advance payments is still great and will continue for many years. These are the people who may be very gravely disadvantaged by the working of Section i76 as it stands.

I know that in the Highways Act there is a facility—it resulted from an amendment which I drafted—for a local highway authority to make a contribution to the cost of a flank frontage. Quite often a local highway authority will do it, but it is a very modest contribution and does not begin to meet the problem. It can still leave somebody with £1,000 or £2,000 to pay. In many cases it can be paid only by mortgaging the house.

I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will give this matter careful and sympathetic consideration and that he will accept the clause now or, if he finds any fault with its drafting, introduce it in the other place. I hope that the Under-Secretary will not say that this is not quite the right sort of Bill. I believe that the clause is in order and within the scope of the Bill. An amendment has been put down to make the appropriate change in the Long Title.

If the will is there, it can be done. It will be only a very slight nuisance to local authorities, but it will prevent any case of gross hardship during the long transitional period before the advance payments code takes over altogether.

Mr. Michael Shersby (Uxbridge)

I support the new clause because I believe that it will remedy what is today a very considerable injustice and a very considerable hardship to many people. It will remedy an injustice whereby those who have a frontage to a private road which is taken over by a local authority are liable for the expense of street works to that private road in relation to that frontage. In that term, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) has pointed out, the flank frontage must be included.

According to my researches, this archaic system dates from the code of 1892, inasmuch as those who regularly use such roads but have little or no frontage to them, under this arrangement, do not necessarily fulfil their obligations to contribute to their maintenance unless the local authority resolves to take degree of benefit into account. As my hon. and learned Friend says, the new clause makes it clear that if this system can be changed—as I hope it will be—the greater or lesser degree of benefit derived by premises will be the most important factor in settling apportionment of costs, and the other main consideration will be the benefit of any work already done by the owners or occupiers of such premises. That is already in the 1959 Act. In other words, the purpose of the new clause is to make these criteria mandatory on the local authority rather than to leave them merely permissive, as is now the case.

This is an eminently sensible and fair proposal for the amendment of the law. I believe that it would greatly benefit many local authorities by providing them with a precise criterion for determining the apportionment of expenses in making up private roads.

From my own experience with local authorities I believe that there is a great tendency for them not to use the statutory permissive powers. It is very much easier not to do so, because of the difficulties which sometimes arise when permissive powers are contested. But this is a matter of some importance, and it is worth detaining the House on it for a few moments this afternoon. I appeal to the Under-Secretary to give this matter sympathetic consideration and to accept the eminently sensible new clause.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Guy Barnett

The House has heard two very persuasive speeches. I know that it will not please the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) if I say that I listened to him with sympathy, because the use of that word will give him a premonition of what is to follow. However, I mean it genuinely. Some years ago I represented a more rural constituency than I represent now and I frequently came across the kind of problem to which the hon. and learned Member has referred.

I recognise that in Section 176 of the Highways Act there is a deal of rough and ready justice in that people are charged according to the length of their frontage when a private road is to be made up by a highways authority. On the other hand, a provision was rightly included in the Act giving local authorities the power, if they think it just, to resolve in settling the apportionment of charges to have regard to the greater or lesser degree of benefit to be derived by any premises from the street works and to the amount and value of any work already done by owners or occupiers of any premises.

A discretionary power for local authorities does exist and it is not accurate to suggest that it is hardly ever used. Many authorities take into account the degree of benefit involved. A number of authorities in the Midlands and in large conurbations have used Section 176 and the powers of Section 210 to modify the effect of a frontage This is not as rare as is sometimes claimed.

There may be complaints about authorities operating in the area about which the hon. and learned Member spoke, though I hope that that is not the case. In the light of existing legislation it ought to be possible to see that this matter is resolved without the change proposed by the hon. and learned Member.

The new clause is unprecedented. No such provision has ever been enacted and if the House were to accept it, we should have to do so without Any consultation with representatives of county councils, which are the street works authorities, or with the property-owning interests which would be involved in an amendment of the works code.

It would not be appropriate to include a new clause, on what is essentially a highways matter, in this Bill. I do not think that the hon. and learned Member can complain that the House does not consider highways and traffic matters frequently. We seem always to he discussing issues connected with highways. There are other opportunities for Ole hon. and learned Member to make the point he has made so eloquently today.

A power already exists for local authorities to take account of benefit derived and the right action for those who complain about rough and ready justice in individual circumstances is to make their complaints to local authorities, rather than to attempt to obtain an amendment of the law.

I am sorry to have to disappoint the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield and the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby), but this is the only position we can take in the light of what we understand to be the situation.

Mr. Ronald Bell

The Minister's reply, though not unexpected, is disappointing, not least because I have heard it on a number of occasions in the past.

Section 176 of the Highways Act, which confers the discretionary power, was introduced because it was felt that a strict frontage measurement system could lead to great injustice. Indeed, on almost every occasion it is used it leads to some degree of injustice.

It is a very haphazard system. One house may have a garden alongside it while another has only a narrow frontage but a very long garden, giving it a considerable flanking frontage. This difference can make a considerable difference to the amount of road charges to be paid.

It is easy to call this system rough justice. I call it rough injustice. We are talking a little academically about this matter, but it is extremely important for the people who receive enormous bills. They want to know why Parliament does not put it right. It is not fair. It is ridiculous that someone should pay two or three times as much as his neighbours because his garden is a slightly different shape. The situation can affect cottages as easily as large houses.

The problem may not have been so important when road charges were comparatively small, but now they are astronomical. I know that the discretion is available to local authorities and no doubt it is used in the Midlands, but it is not used in most of the rest of the country and, I am sorry to say that it is certainly not used in the rural areas of which I have had experience.

I am not worried about the lack of consultation with county councils. This issue has been canvassed for the past 20 years and they know all about it. None of them will ask to be compelled and I can tell the Minister now what consultations would reveal. The county councils would be against the proposal, but not strongly. They will not ask Parliament to compel them to do it. They have the power already but they do not often wish to use it.

This is a matter with which Parliament could and should deal. We often discuss Road Traffic and Local Government Acts, but highway matters cannot be raised on those measures. How often do we get a Highways Act? The basic Act is still that passed in 1959—quite a long time ago.

I am sorry that the Minister has decided not to accept the new clause. I am consoled only by the fact that he may repent and that there is still the opportunity in another place for him to acquire merit and introduce the new clause there. I hope that he does not dismiss this problem. It is a matter of concern to many people.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

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