Nuisance

Public nuisance - pigeons roosting under bridge fouling pavement - droppings causing danger and health hazard to pedestrians - bridge owner liable in public nuisance Wandsworth London Borough Council v Railtrack plc: CA (Lords Justice Kennedy, Chadwick and Mr Justice Rougier): 30 July 2001The defendants owned a railway bridge in South London with a footpath underneath used by pedestrians.

The bridge attracted a large number of wild pigeons which roosted under the bridge and fouled the footpath with their droppings, making it slippery and hazardous to health.

In an action by the local authority the defendants claimed that the proliferation of pigeons was encouraged by the ready availability of food, and that it was the responsibility of the local authority to clean the footpath.

Mr Justice Gibbs found in favour of the local authority (see [2000] Gazette, 2 November, 43).

The defendants appealed.Timothy Dutton QC and Giles Wheeler (instructed by Kennedys) for Railtrack; Anthony Porten QC and Ranjit Bhose (instructed by Judge & Priestley, Bromley) for the local authority.Held, dismissing the appeal, that pigeon droppings fouling the footpath and passing pedestrians constituted a public nuisance; that where there was a public nuisance on the land, whether it had been created by the owner of the land or some third party, or by natural causes, the responsibility to abate the nuisance was that of the owner; that since the problem was not concerned with pigeons in general, but with the nuisance caused by them in the particular location it was a nuisance which the defendants, and not the local authority, had a clear legal duty to address and remedy.