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(2) Any company which neglects to comply with the foregoing provisions
shall he liable to a fine not exceeding ten pounds, and it shall be the duty of
the sanitary authority to take proceedings against any company in default.
(3) This section shall apply to every water company which is a trading
company supplying water for profit.
On the 5th December, 1906, the Council decided to join in urging the
Metropolitan Water Board to discontinue their practice of cutting off the
water supply from premises upon which the water rate has not been paid and
to substitute legal proceedings for the recovery of the rate where necessary.
For the information of this Authority the Board have forwarded a copy of a
Report of their Finance Committee on the subject.
Metropolitan Water Board.
Extract from Report of Finance Committee.
25th February, 1907.
Withdrawal of Supplies.
1.—We have in the last few weeks received a number of letters from the
Metropolitan Borough Councils and from Local Authorities outside London,
on the subject of the disconnection of supplies consequtnt on non-payment of
water rates, and suggesting that the Board should discontinue what is
described as the practice of the Companies in this matter.
We caused the actual facts of the case to be communicated to the Authorities
in question, but in view of the public interest which is no doubt taken in this
matter, we have thought that it would be convenient to also deal with the
subject in our report to the Board.
The communications from the Borough Councils and other Local Authorities
originated in a resolution of the Islington Borough Council asking the Board
to adopt legal proceedings instead of "cutting off," as a means of recovering
water rates.
In view of the statements which have been made in various quarters, it is,
however, important to point out that by far the greater number of cutting-off
cases have no connection whatever with non-payment of water rate (which was
the only subject dealt with in the Islington resolution), but are attributable to
cases where a remedy is required by the Engineering Department for defective
or irregular fittings and waste of water.
We are quite sure, from the information before us, that the Board's critics
have overlooked this important fact, and have taken it for granted that substantially
all cases of cutting-off are attributable to non-payment of rates.
We, however, confine our attention in this report to the particular matter
raised by the Islington resolution, viz., cutting off for non-payment.
It is a fact, no doubt, that to some extent the Board are continuing the
practice of the Metropolitan Water Companies in this matter, but we think
there is an essential difference in the present practice, inasmuch as the power
of cutting off for non-payment of rates is now very sparingly used, whereas
with the Companies it was almost the only method of recovery.