Section 47 Domestic water rate in certain cases.

Subject to section 41A of this Act, no charge shall be fixed, demanded or recovered for a supply of water to premises to which a water authority were, immediately before 16th May 1949, by virtue of any enactment or agreement, under an obligation to provide such a supply free of charge.

Where by virtue of any local enactment in force immediately before 16th May 1949 the domestic water rate was F2, for a period specified in that enactment, leviable in any area so specified at an amount per pound determined by the local enactment (whether as an amount per pound so specified or as an amount per pound being a proportion so specified of the amount per pound at which the domestic water rate would otherwise be payable, or otherwise), F3any charge payable in the area in question for a supply of water in any period commencing after 31st March 1996 (the “transfer date” for the purposes of Part II of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 and of this subsection) shall, during the period so specified, bear the same proportion to the charge which (but for this subsection) would be payablefor that supply under a charges scheme, as the non-domestic water rate payable there as at the transfer date by virtue of the local enactment and of this subsection (as it had effect on the transfer date) bore to the non-domestic water rate which would otherwise have been payable.

F4Where, by virtue of any enactment or agreement in force immediately before 16th May 1949, a water authority were under an obligation to provide a supply of water to any premises on terms more favourable to the person having the vested interest in the obligation than those which, apart from the obligation, would have been applicable under the enactments in force immediately before that date relating to the supply of water by the authority in the limits of supply in which the premises are situated, F5 the supply shall continue to be provided on the following, and no other, terms, that is to say—

In determining for the purposes of the foregoing provisions of this section whether a supply of water provided under any enactment or agreement in force immediately before 16th May 1949 was provided free of charge or was such a supply as is mentioned in subsection (3), or in determining the sum which by virtue of that subsection is to be paid in respect of such a supply, no account shall be taken of any public water rate levied under any such enactment in respect of the premises so supplied or of any undertaking (other than an undertaking to pay a rate or a charge) entered into by the person having the vested interest in the obligation in consideration of which the supply was provided.

Any question arising under this section whether a water authority are required to provide a supply of water free of charge, or whether a supply is such a supply as is mentioned in subsection (3), or as to the terms on which a supply was provided immediately before 16th May 1949, or on which by virtue of this section a supply is to continue to be provided or otherwise, shall, in default of agreement, be referred to the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State may determine it himself or, if he thinks fit, may refer it for determination by arbitration.

In this section the expression “public water rate” means in relation to any supply any rate called the public water rate in the local enactment by virtue of which the supply is provided on special terms.

Nothing in subsection (1) shall be construed as continuing any exemption, and nothing in subsection (3) as continuing any advantage, where under the enactment or agreement in question the obligation which gives rise to the exemption or advantage ceases to exist.