Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains the various methods which the Electricity Act 1989 employs to enable the electricity industry to function having regard to the need for that balance. Electricity infrastructure rests on an arrangement unique to that industry called a wayleave. The book opened out the term wayleaves to include the full range of relevant permissions including easements and statutory consents. The aim of the book is to give guidance in an area that is generally accepted to be highly technical. This is a practitioner' s guide and so in the book we have focused on the dealings which an electric company has to have with an owner of private land, whether that owner is an individual or a corporate body. We are therefore treating the very particular considerations which arise from Crown lands or Church estates as outside the scope of the book.