ABSTRACT
Under earlier legislation sewers laid in private land vested in the statutory utility under the provisions of the appropriate statute. It was held that such vesting did not give to the statutory undertaker ownership in the appropriate pipe, but only such ownership and such rights as were necessary for the purpose of carrying out the duties of the statutory undertaker. In relation to sewers this was explained in Bradford v The Mayor of Eastbourne [1896], and in relation to gas and water pipes the matter was explained in Newcastle under Lyme Corporation v Wolstanton Ltd [1947]. A possibly inconsistent position, to that explained above, was taken in two cases, Taylor v Oldham Corporation [1876] and Thurrock, Grays & Tilbury Joint Sewerage Board v Thames Land Co Ltd [1925], where it was decided that statutory sewerage undertakers acquired an interest in land where a sewer was laid under statutory powers. In the Thurrock case, this was regarded as an acquisition for the purposes of what is now the Land Compensation Act 1961. In Taylor v North West Water Ltd [1995], the Lands Tribunal followed Thurrock and Taylor, and not the Newcastle under Lyme Corporation case; the laying of a pipe under section 15 of the Public Health Act 1936 was an acquisition of land within the Land Compensation Act 1961. These apparently inconsistent legal decisions can be reconciled as follows. A statutory undertaker may acquire the equivalent of a freehold; it is not an actual legal or equitable interest in the land (see the Newcastle under Lyme Corporation case), but it has otherwise all the characteristics of a freehold interest save that it comes to an end as soon as the statutory undertaker ceases to require the pipe for its statutory purposes. The pipe, being a fixture,
reverts to the landowner. The statutory undertaker will thereafter have no legal or statutory rights in the land. The position is quite different where a statutory undertaker exercises powers of compulsory purchase and acquires under a compulsory purchase order a freehold interest or a perpetual right equivalent to an easement.
