(Court of Session Inner House Second Division) The proprietor of the lands of B, situated within and near to the northern boundary of the city of Glasgow, having pressed the Corporation to undertake a drainage scheme in order to facilitate his feuing, the Corporation constructed, inter alia, a sewer having a sectional area of not quite 7 1 2 square feet, under a road within the city boundary, which had been made one of the public streets of the city, and in a part of that road which ran northwards through the lands of A to the lands of B. The lands of A were not feued, and were used for agricultural purposes. No sewer had previously existed in this part of the road. The new sewer was calculated not merely to serve the purpose of draining the road and such houses as might be built fronting it, but also about 200 acres of prospective building land. The only building on any of the lands adjoining the part of the road in which this new sewer was laid, was the farmhouse and steading on the lands of A, and they were in existence before the sewer was constructed. This farmhouse and steading, although entering from and standing within 25 yards of the road, did not drain into the new sewer. The farm-steading and the agricultural land of the farm were entered in the valuation roll separately as regards both value and occupancy.
The Corporation, as representing the Board of Police, claimed payment under section 329 of the Glasgow Police Act 1866, from the proprietor of A of the proportion of the expense of constructing the sewer corresponding to his whole frontage to that part of the road in which the sewer was laid.
Held (aff. Lord Pearson, Ordinary, by a Court of Seven Judges) (1) that the sewer in question was an ‘ordinary public sewer’ within the meaning of the Glasgow Police Act 1866, the expense of which the proprietors of lands and heritages adjoining the road were bound, in terms of section 329, to defray in proportion to their respective frontages thereto; and (2) (by a majority consisting of the Lord Justice-Clerk, Lord Adam, Lord M’Laren, and Lord Kinnear,- diss. Lord Young and Lord Moncreilf) ( a) that the farmhouse and steading of A was ‘a building erected on a land or heritage adjoining’ the road within the meaning of section 329, ( b) that the proprietor of A was consequently bound now to make payment of his share of the expense of constructing the sewer, and ( c) that the amount so presently payable by him was not only the proportion of such expense effeiring to the extent of his frontage ex adverso of the farmhouse and steading of A, but the proportion corresponding to the whole frontage of the lands of A to that part of the road in which the new sewer was laid.
[1901] SLR 38 – 422
Bailii
Scotland
Utilities
Updated: 11 December 2021; Ref: scu.611491
