A council which is both housing authority and highway authority must give itself written permission before depositing a builder’s skip on the highway–Highways Act 1971 does not provide for ‘blanket’ permissions for deposit of skips
These were
appeals, by way of case stated, by York City Council and Mr George Edward
Pilgrim, the council’s housing manager, against their conviction by York
justices on February 7 1975 on informations preferred by the respondent, Mr
Harry Poller, alleging that on November 8 1973 they deposited a builder’s skip
on the highway without permission, contrary to section 31 (5) of the Highways
Act 1971.
Mr J F Mummery
(instructed by Vizards) appeared for the appellants, and Mr H H Hill (instructed
by Herbert Smith & Co, agents for Witcombe & Co, of York) represented
the respondent.
Giving
judgment, LORD WIDGERY said that the facts were that the skip was deposited on
a highway in an area where the local authority was engaged on a house renovation
scheme. Court proceedings were being taken against the owner of the skip after
a motor-cyclist was killed when his machine collided with it. By section 31 (1)
of the Highways Act the depositing of a builder’s skip on the highway without
written permission from the highway authority was an offence. Section 31 (2)
dealt with the lighting of skips; section 31 (3) dealt with the owner’s
liability; section 31 (5) provided that ‘where the commission [of an offence]
is due to the act or default of some other person or persons they shall be
guilty of an offence.’ The justices
decided that the act of the skip’s owner in the present case in depositing the
skip was due to the ‘act or default’ of the appellants. It so happened that the
first appellant, in addition to being a housing authority, was also the highway
authority responsible for giving permission for the depositing of skips on the
highway. The justices found that someone in the housing department had
contacted the highways department and asked for permission to deposit the skip.
Verbal permission was given, but no written permission was granted.
Subsequently the skip owner was told by the housing department that there was
‘blanket permission’ to deposit skips, something for which the Act did not
however provide.
The justices
took the view that in deciding whether the appellants were guilty, they had to
consider whether the owner’s offence in depositing the skip was, in the
language of section 31 (5), due to the ‘act or default’ of the appellants. The
owner had been told that there was ‘blanket permission’ when there was not, and
the council knew that no written consent had been given. The fact of the matter
was that the owner would never have deposited the skip on the highway if he had
not been given wholly misleading information. One had only to look at the facts
to see that the justices were clearly entitled to conclude that the act of the
skip owner in depositing the skip was due to the act or default of the
appellants.
KILNER BROWN
and GRIFFITHS JJ agreed, and the appeals were dismissed with costs.
