Leeds City Council v Spencer (6 May 1999) Court of Appeal

In this case the court looked at the statutory duties of local authorities and held that a local authority cannot impose on a citizen the performance of its own statutory duty. To do so would be ultra vires. The case involved an appeal by Gordon Spencer against a decision of Leeds County Court requiring him to pay for the cost of works carried out by Leeds City Council to clear accumulated refuse from a communal bin yard shared by three houses of which Gordon Spencer was the landlord. In December 1992 the condition of the bin yard was such that the Council was entitled to exercise its power to issue a notice under Section 4 of the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949. The Council served a notice under that Act requiring Mr Spencer to keep the land free from rats and mice and to remove at his own expense waste which had accumulated. Mr Spencer refused to remove the waste and the Council carried out the clearance itself and sought to reclaim the cost of the works from Gordon Spencer. Gordon Spencer argued that an important consideration was that the Council had failed in its obligations under Section 45 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to remove household waste free of charge. There exists no general duty on householders to put out household waste for collection in a receptacle of any particular kind. Parliament has left it open to each Council to decide what dustbin or plastic sack regime it considers appropriate. The court held that since the Council had failed to serve a notice under Section 46(1) on the householders requiring them to place their waste for collection in receptacles of the kind and number specified in the notice there was a mismatch between the obligations the Council could require of its waste collection contractors and the duties which were imposed on it by statute under Section 45 to remove household waste free of charge. The court held that the unsatisfactory position in the yard had been allowed to arise because of the Council's breach of its public law duty under Section 45 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and by serving a notice on Mr Spencer requiring him to clear the yard at his own expense the Council was imposing on him the cost of discharging an obligation that parliament had imposed on it. This was ultra vires.

(Times Law Reports, 24 May 1999)