purporting to be signed by a secretary or assistant secretary to the Board of Board of Trade, order the deposit fund, or a proportionate part thereof, as the case Trade rules. may be, to be paid to the depositors, or as they shall direct. 28. The issuing in any case of any warrant or certificate relating to deposit or to the deposit fund, or any error in any such warrant or certificate or in relation thereto, shall not make the Board of Trade, or the person signing the warrant or certificate on their behalf, in any manner liable for or in respect of the deposit fund, or the interest of or dividends on the same, or any part thereof respectively. 29. Any application under these rules to the Court of Chancery shall be made in a summary way by petition. 30. The promoters shall give to the Board of Trade 14 days' notice in Opening of writing of their intention to open any tramway, and such tramway shall not tramways. be opened for public traffic until an inspector appointed by the Board of Trade has inspected the same, and the Board of Trade has certified that it is fit for such traffic. Board of Trade, Railway Department, W. R. MALCOLM. CHAPTER VIII. REGULATION OF BUILDINGS. taken down, Local Board scribe line in may pre which same shall be rebuilt. § 1. NEW BUILdings. When houses WHEN any house or building has been taken down, in order to be rebuilt or altered, the Local Board may prescribe the line in which any house or building to be hereafter built shall be erected; and such house or building must be erected in accordance therewith. The Local Board are nevertheless to pay or tender compensation to the owner or other person immediately interested in such house or building, for any loss or damage he may sustain in consequence of its being set back; the amount of which, in case of dispute, is to be settled in the same manner as compensation for land, to be taken under the provisions of the Land Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, is directed to be settled; and all the provisions of that Act relating to the purchase of lands are to apply to the payment made for such loss or damage, as if it were a purchase under that Act. 21 & 22 Vict. c. 98, s. 35. Ib. s. 45. 10 & II Vict. c. 34, s. 68. The Local Board may also on making compensation to the owners for any damage sustained, require houses projecting beyond the regular line of the streets which have been taken down, to be set backwards towards the line of the street, or the line of the adjoining houses or buildings. The following bears upon these provisions-a manufacturer being desirous of pulling down his manufactory, situated in a borough under the Public Health Act, 1848, and of erecting a new one, sent plans and sections of his proposed new building to the surveyor of the Council, who returned to him an approval of the plans by the Building and Improvement Committee of the Town Council, but accompanied by a note (in a printed common form), stating that the ratification of the approval of any plans and particulars by the committee referred only to such matters as were required to be set forth or described therein in accordance with certain bye-laws; and that the approval of the committee gave no authority for the making of any projection on the front of any building into any street beyond the proper line of such street, &c. Relying on this which houses approval, the owner pulled down the manufactory, and afterwards received a notice from the Town Council (acting under the 35th section of the Local Government Act, 1858) that any building thereafter to be built must be built on the line marked Line within shall be rebuilt. shall be red into the plans thereto annexed, which line was about thirteen Line within feet beyond the mark on the plans which had been approved by which houses the committee. It was, however, held that the Town Council rebuilt. were not at liberty to give any such notice after the notice of approval of their committee given by their surveyor, and an injunction was granted to restrain the Council from interfering in any way with the erection of the building according to the plans and sections which have been approved. Consequently the 35th section of the Local Government Act, 1858, applies to such buildings as have been taken down "without any previous approval" by the Local Board of a plan for their re-erection. (1) And the 34th section of the Local Government Act, 1858, empowers a Town Council (being a Local Board under that Act) to make a bye-law requiring a notice, plans and sections of a new building to be given to the Council. (2) In Brown v. Holyhead (3), Pollock, C. B., said he much doubted whether a wall is "a building" within the Act. The Act says, "A house or building," and building there he thought must mean a chapel or warehouse, or an erection of that kind. A rule for a certiorari was made absolute to quash an order of borough justices appointing a surveyor to survey and assess the value of certain property of the applicant, which was required by the corporation for the purpose of widening a street in the borough, the corporation in the case were acting as the Local Board under the Public Health Act, and the objection to the order was, that the justices who made it were interested parties, being ratepayers. (4) Under the Metropolitan Building Act, 18 & 19 Vict. c. 122, Wooden sch. 1, "every building shall be inclosed with walls of brick, houses. stone, or other hard and incombustible substance," and these words amount to a prohibition against building the walls of wood or other combustible substance. Therefore a wooden structure intended to be used as a shop of a considerable size; and likely to last a considerable time, resting on joists, but having no footings or foundations in masonry, and capable of being lifted bodily off the ground by the application of sufficient mechanical powers, is a building within the prohibition of the statute. On an action being brought by a builder for works executed under a contract in connection with the building, it was also held that a contract to erect such a structure within the limits of the Act was illegal, and that the plaintiff could not recover. (5) The Local Board may also, with the sanction of the Local Government Board, purchase any premises for the purpose of making new streets; and, with regard to premises so purchased, (1) Sleev. Bradford, 8 L. T. (N. s.) 491; 9 Jur. (N. s.) 815. (2) Ibid. (3) 7 L. T. (N. s.) 333 (4) Ex parte Westwick v. Nottingham Corporation, 38 L. T. 203. (5) Stevens v. Gourley, 29 L. J. C. P. 1; 1 L. T. (N. S.) 33. Purchase of premises for purpose of making new streets. 21 & 22 Vict. c. 98, s. 36. 11 & 12 Vict. c. 63, s. 73. Compensation for injury occasioned to property by alteration of the level of the street. Provision as to new streets and houses. 21 & 22 Vict. c. 98, s. 34. they have all the powers given by the 73rd section of the Public Health Act, 1848, (ante, p. 183), which empowers the Local Board to purchase any premises for the purpose of widening, opening, enlarging, or otherwise improving any street, and any part of the premises which shall not be wanted for that purpose shall be resold at the best price that can be gotten for the same, and the proceeds of such resale shall be carried to the district fund account. As to the meaning of the word "street" see ante, p. 165. Injury will often be occasioned to property by an alteration of the level of the street in which it is situated; on this point it may be observed that an injunction was refused to restrain defendants from raising a footway under powers conferred by certain local Acts (which incorporated the Lands Clauses Act) in front of plaintiffs' house, and thereby preventing access to a warehouse, and from otherwise damaging their property, it having been established that the defendants were empowered under their Act to alter the footway, and also that plaintiffs had sustained, and would sustain, injury thereby; but it was referred to chambers to ascertain and certify the amount of injury, and what would be a proper sum to be awarded by way of damages in respect of such injury. (1) Under 11 & 12 Vict. c. 63, sect. 53, repealed by the 34th section of the Local Government Act, 1858, the Local Board could require notice of intended new buildings to be given to them; but such notice is now no longer necessary, unless it be required by any bye-law made in pursuance of sect. 34 of the 21 & 22 Vict. c. 98, and confirmed by the Local Government Board. If no bye-law be made on the subject the premises can be erected without notice. Every Local Board may make bye-laws, with respect to the following matters, that is to say :— (1.) With respect to the level, width, and construction of (2.) With respect to the structure of walls of new buildings (4.) With respect to the drainage of buildings, to water- The Local Board may further provide for the observance of such bye-laws, by enacting therein provisions as to the giving of notices, as to the deposit of plans and sections by persons (1) Wedmore v. Bristol, 7 L. T. (N. s.) 459. houses. intending to lay out streets or to construct buildings, as to in- Provision spection of the Local Board; and as to the power of the Local as to new Board to remove, alter, or pull down any work begun or done streets and in contravention of such bye-laws. Bye-laws so made are not 21 & 22 Vict. to affect any building erected before the date of the constitution c. 98, s. 34. of the district. With respect to the width of new streets, the following case occurred under the Metropolis Local Management Amendment Act, 1862 (25 & 26 Vict. c. 102). The 98th section of that Act provides that "no existing road, passage, or way, being of a less width than forty feet, shall hereafter be formed or laid out for a building as a street for the purposes of carriage traffic, unless such road, passage, or way be widened to the full width of forty feet," the measurement to be taken half on either side from the centre or crown of the roadway to the external wall or front of the house, or to the fence or boundary of the forecourt, if any. This provision was held not to apply where the buildings abutted in the rear upon an old lane of less width than forty feet. (1) In another case the Court held that the section does not apply to new houses where back gardens abut upon a road which the builders of other houses have begun to lay out for building as a street, even although the owner has erected a new fence instead of that which divided his ground from the previously existing road. (2) For the purposes of the 21 & 22 Vict. c. 98, the re-erecting What a new of any building pulled down to or below the ground floor, or of building. any frame building, of which only the framework is left down Ib. to the ground-floor; or the conversion into a dwelling-house of any building not originally constructed for human habitations; or the conversion into more than one dwelling-house of a building originally constructed as one dwelling-house only, shall be considered the erection of a new building. A Local Board of Health has no power under sect. 34 of 21 & 22 Vict. c. 98, to make a bye-law relating to buildings erected before the date of the constitution of the district, and to the closing of such buildings when unfit for human habitation, and to the prohibition of their use for such habitation. (3) Act. The Local Government Act office, in a circular dated June, Buildings 1864, referring to the case of Burgess v. Peacock, say that the erected before proviso in the 34th section of the Local Government Act, 1858, adoption of meant that, in the new parts of the town built since the Act came into force, owners of property could not complain if they were within the provisions of the Act; but that as to old houses built before the constitution of the district, the bye-law did not apply. The circular then cautions the Local Boards, while the (1) Metropolitan Board of Works, apps., Cox, resp., 19 C. B. (N. S.) 445. (2) Metropolitan Board of Works v. Clever, 18 L. T. (N. S.) 723. (3) Burgess v. Peacock, 16 C. B. (N. S.) 624; 10 L. T. (N. s.) 617. |