Building regulations — Statutory undertaker — Appellant council alleging breach of building regulations arising from statutory undertaker’s failure to submit plans prior to extending retail areas at railway station — Magistrates finding undertaker exempted from requirement to submit plans by reason of status as statutory undertaker — Whether retail areas qualifying as building held for purpose of undertaking — Section 4(1)(b) of Building Act 1984 — Appeal dismissed
The appellant council laid an information against the respondent alleging that it had breached regulation 12(2)(B) of the Building Regulations 2000 by extending retail areas at Manchester’s Piccadilly railway station without first depositing full plans with the council, as required by regulation 14. The magistrates dismissed the information after finding that the respondent’s activities fell within the statutory exemption contained in section 4(1)(b) of the Building Act 1984. That section relieved statutory undertakers of the duty to submit plans for building regulation approval in relation to buildings “held or used by them for the purpose of their undertaking, unless it is& (ii) a building used as offices and showrooms and not forming part of a railway station”.
The council appealed on the ground that, although the respondent was indeed a statutory undertaker with regard to the provision of railway services, the works in question did not concern a building held or used for the purpose of that undertaking. They contended that the only types of activity that would fall within the section 4 exemption were those connected with the running of a railway. Thus, selling tickets would be included, but other retail activities, such as selling beverages for consumption on a train, would not. The respondent submitted that the provision of retail outlets that were situated within the station, and were accessible only from inside that station, was covered by section 4.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
The fact that offices and showrooms that did not form part of a railway station were excluded from the section 4 exemption indicated that if a building used as offices and showrooms were to form part of a railway station, as in the present case, it would be covered by the exemption. Moreover, section 4(1)(b) expressly distinguished between an undertaking and a railway station, the former being far wider than, not synonymous with, the latter. The extensive meaning given to “railway services” by sections 82 and 83 of the Railways Act 1993 supported that view: Coole v Lovegrove [1893] 2 QB 44 distinguished.
David Travers (instructed by the solicitor to Manchester City Council) appeared for the appellants; Frances Patterson QC (instructed by Kershaw Abbott, of Manchester) appeared for the respondent.
Sally Dobson, barrister
