HL Deb 12 May 1896 vol 40 cc1121-2

(13.) The Board shall not make any Order for purchasing the whole or any part of any park, garden, pleasure-ground, or other land required for the amenity or convenience of any dwelling-house, or any land the property of a railway company or canal company which is or may be required for the purposes of their undertaking, or any land which, in the opinion of the Board, is being held or may be required for the extension of a factory or public work.

(14.) The Board shall, in making an Order for purchasing land, have regard to the extent of land held in the neighbourhood by any owner, and to the convenience of other property belonging to the same owner, and shall as far as is practicable, avoid taking an undue or inconvenient quantity of land from any one owner.

*LORD BALFOUR

said, this clause provided the machinery under which land might be taken for certain purposes under the Bill. The Bill as it now stood provided that after a petition had been presented by the local authority that desired to take land, and after the local inquiry had taken place the order of the Board should be final, unless either party in the litigation—if he might so call it—desired an appeal to Parliament. It was further provided that if there was an appeal to Parliament the procedure should be according to the procedure on Provisional Order Bills, except that there was a limitation proposed in Sub-section 8 to the number of witnesses to be heard before the Private Bill Committee. That limitation had been taken exception to, and he had not been able to put an Amendment on this paper to meet it in time for the present stage, he would propose to omit the limiting words at a subsequent stage of the Bill. There were also some words in Sub-section 4 which some distinguished lawyers had represented to him were liable to be misconstrued as proposing modifications and conditions to the procedure of the Lands Clauses Act, instead of, as was intended, to the amount of land to be taken under the order of the Board. He would, therefore, propose words to make the matter clear at a subsequent stage.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 149,—