On Wed, 30 Dec 2009, wrote:

On Dec 30, 9:39*am, "Richard J." wrote:
Desmo Paul wrote on 30 December 2009 07:38:35 ...

Does anyone know about the British Transport Commission Act 1949? *I
am told that it prevents anyone obtaining an easement over land owned
by the BTC or their successors. *The Land Registry says "Since the
passing of the British Transport Commission Act 1949, it has not been
possible to acquire a right of way by prescription over land owned by
the commission and forming an access or approach to, among other
things, any station, depot, dock or harbour belonging to the
commission (s.57, British Transport Commission Act 1949). The
references to the commissionmust now be read to include successor rail
authorities and the BritishWaterways Board."

I cannot find any version of the act and am wondering if anyone has
the precise text?

I haven't found the whole Act (it doesn't seem to be online
atwww.statutelaw.gov.uk), but there's a direct quotation from the
relevant section 57, as amended by later legislation,
athttp://www.planning-inspectorate.gov.uk/pins/row_order_advertising/co...
(see para. 8)

The 1949 Act is no longer in force (which is why no U.K. current statute
database contains any of its terms)

Are you sure? It's not in the Statute Law Database, certainly, and that
does claim to have everything that was in force in 1991 or after.

However! There are certainly mentions of it post 1991 which imply that it
*was *still in force - the SI that prompted by previous post, and also a
proposed amendment in 1994 [1]. In the debate on that amendment, the MP
for Thurrock said:

I could find only one copy of the primary statute -- the British
Transport Commission Act 1949 -- in the Palace of Westminster and that
took some discovery late at night on Thursday, before the Bill was
published.

So perhaps this is an act which is in force, but of which all the copies
have gone missing, and hence it's not in the database. It seems like this
problem may not be unique to this act; elsewhere in that debate, the
minister admits that:

No Labour or Conservative Minister since the war has ever been able to
give an assurance that complex legislation stemming from the 1945 to 1951
Parliament would be 100 per cent. right.

!

Now, i noticed in the schedule to the 1962 act mentioned in my previous
post that the 1949 act was listed as a local, rather than a general, act.
That means we can pull something else out of our arsenal - OPSI's
Chronological Tables of Local Acts [2]. These are tables of all acts
classified as local, listing all amendments and repeals which have
affected them. They're not normative, but they're the result of a 20-year
project by the Law Commission, so they should be pretty solid.

The 1949 act is indeed listed [3] (under c.xxix British Transport
Commission - and the chapter number matches that given in the 1962 act, so
this is the right thing). The entry is huge, and doesn't, as far as i can
see, mention any general repeal or consolidation of the act. There is an
entry for section 57:

57 am.- Tpt. 1962 (c.46), s.32, sch.2 pt.III; 1968 (c.73), s.156(2),
sch.16 para.7; Tpt.(London) 1969 (c.35), s.17, sch.3
para.2(1)(2); London Regional Tpt. 1984 (c.32), s.67(2)(3),
sch.4 para.8(2)(3)(d).

Which also doesn't mention repeal. I haven't looked at any of the acts
listed there, but they are listed as amending, rather then repealing, so i
assume they don't fundamentally nobble section 57.

(Aside - the bit for section 57 looks like it's under a cross-reference to
the Heathrow Express Railway Act 1991 [5], but i've looked at that, and it
doesn't mention section 57, so i think this is an idiosyncracy of the
layout of the Table)

So, in conclusion, i think what we have here is a law that is in force,
but isn't listed in the databases. I will drop the SLD chaps a note.

tom

[1] http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate...94-03-21a.84.3
[2] http://www.opsi.gov.uk/chron-tables/...-to-local-acts
[3] http://www.opsi.gov.uk/chron-tables/local/chron174

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