{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/local-government-area-changes-regulations-1976/regulation-29",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/local-government-area-changes-regulations-1976/regulation-29.json",
  "legislation": "uksi/1976/246",
  "legislation_title": "The Local Government Area Changes Regulations 1976",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/local-government-area-changes-regulations-1976",
  "path": "regulation/29",
  "kind": "regulation",
  "number": "29",
  "heading": "Mental health",
  "text": "(1) This regulation shall apply where an area is transferred from one relevant area to another such area, and in this regulation “the transferred area” means the area so transferred and—\n“the Act of 1959” means the Mental Health Act 1959;\n“dissolved authority” means a local authority dissolved by the order;\n“local authority” means the local authority for the purposes of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 for a relevant area; and\n“relevant area” means a non-metropolitan county, a metropolitan district, a London borough or the City.\n(2) Anything duly done before the appointed day for the purposes of any provision of the Act of 1959 by or in relation to the local authority from whose area any area is transferred, or a mental welfare officer appointed by them, in relation to any person in the transferred area shall not be affected by the changes of areas made by the order but may be continued by or in relation to the local authority to whose area the transferred area is transferred, or a mental welfare officer appointed by them; as the case may be.\n(3) Where immediately before the appointed day a patient is in the guardianship under the Act of 1959 of a dissolved authority his guardianship shall vest in the local authority for the area comprising the place where he resided immediately before he was received into guardianship or if that place cannot with reasonable diligence be ascertained, or is disputed, in such local authority as shall have been designated by the dissolved authority (or is designated by the residuary successor of that authority), and—\n(a) in the case of a patient subject to guardianship by virtue of a guardianship application, the provisions of Part IV of the Act of 1959 shall apply to him as if the application for his reception into guardianship had been for his reception into the guardianship of that local authority and had been accepted at the time when it was originally accepted;\n(b) in the case of a patient subject to guardianship by virtue of a guardianship order, the provisions of Part IV of the Act of 1959 shall apply to him as if the order by virtue of which he is subject to guardianship were an order placing him under the guardianship of that local authority.\n(4) Any order made by a county court under section 52 of the Act of 1959 directing that the functions under Part IV of that Act of the nearest relative of a patient shall be exercisable by a dissolved authority shall have effect as if it had directed those functions to be exercised by the local authority in whose area the patient resided on the appointed day, or if he is then in hospital by the local authority in whose area on that day the place at which he was resident immediately before he was admitted to hospital is situated.\n(5) For the purposes of regulation 26 of the Mental Health (Hospital and Guardianship) Regulations 1960 a patient in hospital at the time when his age is to be determined who resided before the date of his admission to hospital in the transferred area shall be deemed to have resided at that time in the area of a local authority to which the transferred area is transferred.",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [
    {
      "type": "footnote",
      "label": "f1",
      "text": "(1960 II, p. 1903)."
    }
  ],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1976/246/regulation/29",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T20:34:17.585554+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}