Section 37 of the Roads and Bridges Act 1878 provides that ‘where a bridge is not situated wholly within one county or burgh, the expense of maintaining, and if need be of rebuilding the same shall, failing agreement, be a charge equally against the trustees of the county or counties and local authority or authorities of the burgh or burghs within which it is partly situated.’
By section 88 it is provided that ‘Whereas there are or may be bridges in Scotland which accommodate the traffic not only of the county or counties or burgh or burghs, as the case may be, within which they are locally situated, but also of the adjoining county or of other counties and burgh or burghs, or one or more of them, and it is not reasonable that the whole burden of managing, maintaining, repairing, and if need be rebuilding such bridge, and of paying the debt affecting or which may affect the same, should be imposed on the county or burgh within which they are so situated,’ the counties and burgh authorities may agree that ‘any such bridge’ accommodating other traffic than that of the county or burgh within which it is situated, and may agree as to the proportions in which the cost of maintaining, and if need be rebuilding such bridge, shall be borne ‘by the county or counties, burgh or burghs, to which it is common,’ and that application may be made to the Secretary of State to determine that any bridge locally situated within a county or burgh shall, in respect of its accommodating other traffic than that of such county or burgh, ‘be deemed to belong in common to the county or counties and burgh or burghs to be named in his determination.’
Held (aff. judgment of First Division) that sec. 88 was not limited to the case of a bridge wholly situated within one county or burgh, but applied to the case of a bridge partly situated in one burgh and partly in another, and which accommodated traffic not only of the burghs in which it was situated, but also of the adjoining county and adjoining burghs.
Judges:
Lord Chancellor Herschell, Lords Watson, Ashbourne, and Fitzgerald
Citations:
[1886] UKHL 620, 23 SLR 620
Links:
Jurisdiction:
Scotland
Local Government
Updated: 04 July 2022; Ref: scu.637732
