Public Health Act 1875

114 Duty of urban authority to complain to justice of nuisance arising from offensive trade.

Where any candle-house melting-house melting-place or soap-house, or any slaughter-house, or any building or place for boiling offal or blood, or for boiling burning or crushing bones, or any manufactory building or place used for any trade business process or manufacture causing effluvia, is certified to any urban authority by their medical officer of health, or by any two legally qualified medical practitioners, or by any ten' inhabitants of the district of such urban authority, to be a nuisance or injurious to the health of any of the inhabitants of the- district, such urban authority shall direct complaint to be made before a justice, who may summon the person by or on whose behalf the trade so complained of is 'carried on to appear before a court of summary jurisdiction.

The court shall inquire into the complaint, and if it appears to the court that the business carried on by the person complained of is a nuisance, or causes any effluvia which is a nuisance or injurious to the health of any of the inhabitants of the district, and unless it be shown that such person has used the best practicable means for abating such nuisance, or preventing or counteracting such effluvia, the person so offending (being the owner or occupier of the premises, or being a foreman or other person employed by such owner or occupier,) shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding five pounds nor less than forty shillings, and on a second and any subsequent conviction to a penalty double the amount of the penalty imposed for the last preceding conviction, but the highest amount of such penalty shall not in any case exceed the sum of two hundred pounds:

Provided, that the court may suspend its final determination on condition that the person complained of undertakes to adopt, within a reasonable time, such means as the court may deem to be practicable and order to be carried into effect for abating such nuisance, or mitigating or preventing the injurious effects of such effluvia, or if such person gives notice of appeal to the court of quarter sessions in manner provided by this Act.

Any urban authority may, if they think fit, on such certificate as, is in this section mentioned, cause to be taken any proceedings in any superior court of law or equity against any person in respect of the matters alleged in such certificate.