Section 4 Repayment of local loans made by the Treasury.F7

Nothing in any enactment requiring that, where a sum borrowed by a local authority is repayable by instalments (whether of principal alone or of principal and interest combined), the first instalment shall be paid within a specified period from the date of borrowing shall be taken to prevent the first instalment of a sum so borrowed from the F1Treasury, as a local loan, being made repayable within any longer period F2. . . not exceeding five years.

Nothing in any enactment requiring that, where a sum borrowed by a local authority is repayable by such instalments, the instalments shall be equal and periodical shall be taken to prevent the Treasury from postponing, under section thirty-seven of the F3Public Works Loans Act 1875, the payment of any instalment of a sum so borrowed F4or to prevent or the local authority from agreeing to the postponement on any terms authorised by the Treasury under that section.

Where, under either of the said sections or otherwise, payment of interest on any sum borrowed by a local authority from F5the Treasury, as a local loan, is postponed (whether the interest would, but for the postponement, have been payable separately from the principal or as part of an instalment of principal and interest combined), F6the Treasury and the local authority may agree that it shall be a condition of the postponement that all or any of the interest accruing during the period of the postponement shall, at the end of that period, be added to the principal and bear interest and be repaid accordingly.

In this subsection references to postponing the payment of interest shall be construed as including references to arranging that the interval between the borrowing and the first payment of interest is longer than the interval between subsequent payments of interest, and references to the period of postponement as including references to the first mentioned interval.