Local government

Public health - abatement notice relating to odour from sewage works - sewage works 'premises' capable of creating statutory nuisance

Hounslow London Borough Council v Thames Water Utilities Ltd: QBD (Lord Justice Scott Baker and Mr Justice Pitchford): 23 May 2003

The council served an abatement notice on the company, stating that the odour emitted by the company's sewage treatment works constituted a statutory nuisance under section 79(1)(d) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, as 'arising on industrial, trade or business premises and being prejudicial to health or a nuisance'.

Section 79(7) defined 'premises' to include 'premises used for any industrial, trade or business purposes...

and premises are used for industrial purposes where they are used for the purposes of any treatment or process'.

A district judge in a magistrates' court quashed the notice on the ground that the sewage works did not constitute 'premises' within the meaning of section 79(1)(d).

The council appealed by way of case stated.

Stephen Tromans (instructed by the Borough Solicitor, Hounslow London Borough Council) for the council; Gordon Wignall (instructed by Marie de Viell, Reading) for the company.

Held, allowing the appeal, that what constituted a statutory nuisance was carefully defined by section 79(1)(7) of the 1990 Act, as were numerous exceptions, and the definition in section 79(7) was a wide one plainly including sewage works on its natural meaning; that the policy considerations behind the ratio of R v Parlby (1889) 22 QBD 520, where it had been held that public sewage works were not capable of creating a statutory nuisance, were out of date; and that, accordingly, the district judge's order would be quashed and the matter remitted to the magistrates' court.