§ CONTROL OF DEMOLITIONS
§ Mr. MacfarlaneI beg to move amendment No. 52, in page 24, line 26, leave out 'owner of any property' and insert 'occupier of any building'.
§ Mr. MacfarlaneAmendment No. 52 provides that a person giving notice to the local authority of his intention to demolish a building shall send or give a copy to the occupier of any adjacent building. Amendment No. 53 provides that a local authority serving notice imposing conditions relating to a demolition shall send or give a copy of the notice to the owners and occupiers of adjacent buildings.
I shall deal first with amendment No. 52. Section 29(3) of the Public Health Act 1961, as set out in clause 23(1), requires a person intending to demolish a building to notify owners of adjacent property. However, there are no means by which such a person is empowered to ascertain the names of adjacent owners, and it is considered that it is the enjoyment of the occupiers of a building that is most likely 476 to suffer disturbance from adjacent demolition works, and there is no difficulty in identifying the occupiers of a building, as opposed to an absent owner. It is therefore considered reasonable and practicable for a person undertaking the demolition of a building to serve notice of the fact on the occupiers of adjacent buildings, rather than on the owners of such buildings. In many cases the residential occupiers of a building will also be the owners.
I come to amendment No. 53. Section 29A(5) of the Public Health Act 1961, as set out in clause 23(1) requires the local authority to give a copy of its notice imposing conditions, if any, to the owner of any adjacent property. This is linked with a requirement in section 29(3), as amended by amendment No. 52, to require the person undertaking the demolition to inform adjacent occupiers. It is accordingly proposed that the local authority should similarly be required to copy any notice that it gives to the occupiers to the owners of adjacent buildings.
It is thought important that owners should be made aware of any conditions imposed by the local authority which may affect their building, such as requirements for the demolisher to undertake works of repair or weatherproofing. As local authorities are empowered to obtain details of the ownership of buildings, this is a reasonable and practicable requirement. At the same time, it is considered that the term "property" should be more closely defined to prevent any possible misconstruction. It is therefore substituted in both cases by the word "building".
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Mr. Campbell-SavoursOn a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have discussed amendments to clause 21, but there is no clause 21 in my copy of the Bill. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that.
§ Mr. RaisonNo. It appears that there is a mistake. On page 20 of the Bill clause 20 is followed by clause 22, and that is followed by clause 22. 1 suspect that the first clause 22 should be clause 21.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerHas the hon. Member got that right? There is a misprint on page 20, where clause 22 should read clause 21. Clause 22 on page 21 is correct.